For Daws To Peck At
by Bialy
Summary: Most kids in his class hate Drama, and Kenny's no different. Shame his life is so God damn full of it. Crenny and Candy interlinked with a production of Othello. Ongoing.
1. Boys and Girls

Disclaimer: I don't own South Park and I'm making no money off this story. Which is for the best, really, as I am irresponsible with money and unfunny. Title quote belongs to Shakespeare. Lyric quote belongs to Fall Out Boy, 'Sophmore Slump or Comeback Year'.

Note: This is going to be my first _genuine_ attempt at an actually reasonable South Park multichaptered story. I'm going to be using a VERY standard plot device, which you will see in the next chapter, though hopefully a couple of things I have planned will spice it up a little. I'm also still getting the hang of these characters so if something feels off about my characterisation or style, please do tell me. The better I get the more likely I am to produce a story you can genuinely enjoy reading, which is my goal.

Anyway, usual South Park warnings apply. Core pairings will be Candy and Crenny so, obviously, those characters will be in the most focus. In advance, I want to make an apology: I am British, and am winging it a little in terms of structure of an American school day, types of class, etc. If I make any errors, point it out, and I won't do it again. And now, the fic: please enjoy.

x

**For Daws To Peck At**

**Chapter 1  
Boys and Girls**

_we're the lifers, here til the bitter end  
condemned from the start  
__the kids you used to love  
but then we grew old _

**

* * *

**

_This cologne_, thought Craig, _smells like banana AIDS._

But he put it on anyway. Because, he'd learnt, that was what you did as a teenage boy. You put on masses and masses of cologne, even if it made you smell like a diseased fruit salad.

"Craig, you ready yet?" his dad called up the stairs. "You said Clyde would be here at eight."

"Yeah, I'll just be a second!" Craig ran a hand through his hair. Turning his head and squinting into the mirror, he flattened it to one side with his hand. Pulling a face, he scrubbed his hand over his head and tweaked a few pieces of his fringe up. It still didn't look right.

So he put on his hat, like he knew he was going to do anyway, and headed downstairs.

"He'll be here soon, then?" his dad verified for the fourth time that evening.

"Yeah, dad," Craig said, exasperated. "He just text me, he's on his way."

"He's not one of those boys who texts while they're driving, is he?"

Craig sighed. "No, dad. I'll just...go wait outside for him, ok?"

"Actually Craig, I want a word with you."

Inwardly, he groaned. _So close_. He turned back to his father, and sat down.

"Yeah?"

His father looked at him contemplatively over the top of his paper. "Hm, I'm not quite sure how to broach this with you."

Craig's feeling of resignation morphed into one of dread. Oh, God no. This wasn't going to be one of _those_ talks, was it?

"Well, I suppose I'll just cut right to it. We don't want you to feel that you can't bring girls back, son."

Oh, it was going to be one of those talks.

Craig simply stared at his father. "Uh – what?"

His father held up his hands. "All I'm saying, son, is you're young. This is the time when you're _free_. You don't have to get into any committed relationships, and if anything happens – if any _little problems_ come into being – well, most girls nowadays want to go to college, so they'll _handle the problem_, if you know what I mean." He cleared his throat. "And we'd rather have you taking care of business _here_, rather than in a bush somewhere."

Craig didn't understand why his father was doing this to him. He seemed to be finished, though, and cracked his paper back open, leaving Craig to sit in a kind of horrified silence.

Then, mercifully, a horn beeped outside.

"That'll be Clyde," Craig said, automatically. And even if it wasn't, he thought, he was going to get in the car with whoever it was and just _leave_.

"Sorry I'm a bit late," Clyde said, as Craig slipped into the passenger seat.

Craig sat in ruminative thought for a moment, and then said, "I think my dad just told me to sleep around."

Clyde gaped at him for a moment, and then asked, "Did he give you condoms?"

"...No."

"Shame."

Craig snorted. "Just drive. We're already gonna be late, you retard."

* * *

A guy's night in had always consisted of three things; alcohol, bragging, and Xbox.

"Seriously, seriously," Kenny said, waving an empty beer bottle at Stan. "I've put this shit on Easy. Whoever drunks now is definitely lose."

"Kenny, give your controller to someone who doesn't keep bringing us back to the title screen."

"Can I have another beer?"

Stan reached behind him into the box containing all the drink they'd managed to amass for that evening. "Swap," he said, and took the controller out of Kenny's hand.

"_Awesome_. Hey, Cartman, open my beer for me."

"What? Do it yourself, you poor asshole!"

"You're the one who bought the bottle-opener belt," Token pointed out.

"Obvious compensation," Kyle whispered to Kenny, who burst out laughing like it was the funniest fucking thing he'd ever heard.

"'Ey! I heard that, Jew!"

"If the _really tiny_ cock-shaped boot fits..."

"So help me, Kyle, I will throw you out of this house myself."

"Oh yeah, dude, we've gotta say thanks for letting us use your place for this," Stan said, pulling the ring on his third can. "We were almost at the point of being desperate enough to go round Kenny's."

"He only did it so we'd have to invite him," Kyle said, grabbing Stan's can from him and taking the first drink.

Next to Craig, Clyde snickered. "It's kinda reassuring, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?" Craig asked.

"No matter how much of an asshole you turn out to be, or how badly you fuck up, the guys are always going to rip more piss out of Cartman than you."

"Good point."

"Dude, Stan's getting his beer back off Kyle. Get the pad."

Craig leant forward and snatched up the abandoned controller. Before he could even sit back down, Clyde had managed to get it off him.

"Hey! If you were just going to do that, you should have got off your own ass to get it."

Clyde grinned. "Why bother? Plus, Craig, haven't you got other things you ought to be doing?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Stop bringing that up," Craig said darkly.

"What's that?" Stan had reclaimed his beer, and was eyeing the controller in Clyde's hands with suspicion. "Hey, that's my one, isn't it?"

"Craig's dad told him he needed to get more pussy," Clyde said, ignoring Stan's accusation. "I'm just saying, I don't think Modern Warfare is gonna help you get laid tonight, pal."

"What? Craig, your dad _wants_ you to have sex?"

"Craig's dad wants to have sex with him?"

"Shut the fuck up, Cartman."

Craig put his face in his hands. From between his fingers, he could see that Clyde's grin was, if possible, getting even wider. "His dad had a little 'talk' with him today," Clyde explained, "saying how basically he should be busy sowing his oats before shit gets serious."

Token burst out laughing. "Your dad said that to you?"

"I think it's his part of his plan to make sure I never, ever have sex," Craig said seriously. "Reverse psychology."

"Naw, your dad's a cool guy," pointed out Kyle. "He probably means that."

"I think that's worse," Craig decided.

Stan shrugged. "Least you know he'd be cool with you bringing someone back."

"What? You don't want your parents to be cool with that!" Cartman said. "It takes half the fun out of it! Teenage rebellion, guys!"

Craig looked at Cartman blankly. "Convenience takes the fun out of sex."

Clyde snickered again. "I guess that answers the rather redundant question of which of you two is boning Wendy."

Kenny and Cartman both suddenly looked up, with identical appalled looks on their faces. "_What?_"

"We all sort of assumed one of you guys must be doing Wendy," Token explained, "seeing as you three hang out so much. We didn't _really_ think it was Cartman –"

"- and after that comment, I think we can be pretty sure it'll _never_ be Cartman, for anyone, ever –"

"Seriously Clyde, shut the fuck up or you can join Kyle on the streets!"

"I'm still here, fatass!"

"- so it must be Kenny," finished Token.

The boys turned as one to Kenny, who was sprawled on his back, head pulled up at an awkward angle. "Guys, I'm not fucking Wendy."

"You guys are always hanging out," Stan said.

"We're friends, dude."

"But she's a _girl_."

"...Girls are people too." Kenny looked confused.

"Not until we're like twenty or something," Kyle said. "Until then I think we're mainly meant to stare at them."

Kenny snorted. "That's dumb."

Clyde flicked the top of a beer bottle at Kenny's head, narrowly missing his eye. "She's hot. I'd do her. Anyone else?"

Token raised his hand, and Stan turned a little red.

"Come on, Cartman," Kyle said. "You're completely lying if you say you wouldn't."

"I didn't see you put your hand up, Kyle!"

"That's because _I_ wouldn't. _You_ would fuck anyone that would have you."

Cartman was starting to look uncomfortable, and suddenly, Clyde laughed.

"I get it! He's just turned into a massive pussy. He hangs out with her because he _likes her company_ or something, like Kenny."

"Heeeey," Kenny complained.

"I do not! She's a fucking ho!"

"So you do want to fuck her, she just won't fuck you," Craig said dryly. "Even girls that _like_ you don't like you. Wow."

"Fuck you, Craig! I wouldn't do her because she's a hippie douche, yeah? Otherwise I'd fuck the shit outta her!"

"I'm telling her that," Kenny said sleepily from the floor.

"I'll fucking kill you, Kenny!" Cartman growled, looking very red in the face.

"I'll just hold the thought for later."

"Okay, okay guys," Stan said, grinning a little. "Let's lay off Cartman, he is letting us use his house."

"Yeah! I'll kick you out, you douches!"

"Cartman, stop threatening to throw people out," Kyle snapped. "It's just annoying."

"Fuck you, Jew." But he shut up.

Craig heard a weird noise next to him. "Clyde, what the hell?"

"It's my stomach," the other boy said, pulling a face. "I'm staaarving."

"Hey, I'm pretty hungry, too," said Token. "Do you guys want to order a pizza?"

Kenny groaned. "Fuuuuck, I can't afford it! Jeez, and I haven't eaten since this morning."

"If you're hungry, I can pay for you this one time," Craig offered.

Kenny stared at him. "Seriously? Because I will fucking take you up on that."

Clyde stared at him, too. "Will you pay for me too?"

"No, you fuck, pay for your own pizza."

"Hey! What's so special about Kenny?"

"Yeah!" said Cartman, seeing a chance to turn the conversation onto someone else. "Are you gay for him or something?"

"No," Craig said matter-of-factly. "But he's hungry. It's called doing something nice. If you tried it once in a while, you might have a chance with Wendy."

"She does like nice," Stan said.

"Shut the fuck up about Wendy!"

"Yeah," Kenny said, pointing at Craig. "Or even your golden pizza money won't make me not beat you up when I'm soberer. Does that need another er?"

"Craig," Clyde suddenly asked, "why do you smell like bananas?"

* * *

It must have been about six in the morning when Craig woke up. He half-heartedly attempted to find a watch, or a digital clock, or a microwave, or _anything_ with the time on it, but came up short. The sun was beginning to brighten the dull blue of the sky outside, and when he peeked between the curtains, the glare as it bounced off the fresh snow was, in Craig's opinion, nothing less than obnoxious.

He shuffled into the kitchen, his mouth as dry as Ghandi's flip flops. The only things he could find were cola and more alcohol, and his insides shuddered at the thought. Reluctantly, and a little groggily, he filled a glass with tap water and sat down at Cartman's kitchen table.

At which point, he found himself face to face with Kenny McCormick.

"Hi Craig," Kenny said. He was sat with his face propped up with one hand, and he looked like he was nearly falling asleep.

"Hey Kenny."

"You're up early."

"Cartman's snoring is like what happens if a drill fucks a tractor and they have bastard children."

Kenny chuckled into the palm of his hand. "It totally is," he mumbled.

"You could just go to sleep if you're tired," Craig pointed out.

"I have fucked up dreams when I'm drunk," Kenny told him. "Really, really fucked up dreams."

"Huh. I just sort of pass out."

Kenny yawned. "Ohh...dude. Thanks for the pizza."

"It's just pizza."

"Yea but it's _pizza_."

Everything was feeling surreal. The half-light, the fact he was sat in Cartman's kitchen at six or whatever it was in the morning, Kenny's fucked-up pizza comments...

Actually, it had been a weird-ass night since his dad had stopped him for that conversation. A thought occurred to him, and there was still a little too much alcohol in his system for him to hold it back.

"Everyone's obsessed with girls."

Kenny yawned. "Well, _yeah_."

"I'm not," Craig pointed out. It had been bothering him, on and off, all evening. Everytime the topic of girls had come up, he had felt himself getting a little disinterested, losing a little focus.

"You could be gay," Kenny suggested, and then yawned. "Neither is Kyle."

"Oh good. My options are being gay or being Kyle."

Kenny's hand slid up and tangled itself in his blond hair. "S'not so bad. Kyle's awesome. I love Kyle. He's like my little Jewish teddy bear."

"...Right."

"And being gay is fine I guess. Unless you get all rapey about it like that one Goth kid who stalks people."

"_That's_ reassuring."

"Oh come on. There's worse things to be than gay," Kenny said, speaking into his wrist. "I bet most people in that room there are a little bit bi or something." He paused. "Except Cartman. Actually, no, maybe Cartman. Except Token. Token's all man. Cartman could swing. For a guy that looked like Wendy."

Kenny snickered at his own joke, and Craig frowned. "Are you gay?"

Kenny shrugged, a weird, lazy motion that bobbed his head forwards into his arm. "I dunno. I've never really done anything with a guy. So I can't know, you know? I think that's what you oughta do, too. Try things out. Sexshl...sex-u-al experiments. Experimentation. Try before you buy."

Craig stared at him. "Go to sleep."

"I shall do just that," Kenny said, and folding his arms on the table, he proceeding to lay his head on top of them and within a few minutes was fast asleep.

Craig sat opposite him at the table drinking his water.

This conversation would probably make a lot more sense when he was sober again.

* * *

Monday morning brought the same things Monday morning always brought. There was a general sense of reluctance and resignation as everyone traipsed to their homerooms, and at least half the people Kenny clapped eyes on looked like they hadn't properly woken up. The other half were frantically swapping pieces of homework and scrawling hasty answers to assignments they'd forgotten.

He really did wonder, sometimes, what the point of school was. Everyone mainly just coasted, or copied, or cheated. The only thing he'd learnt since starting high school was how to unlatch a bra one-handed, and that was more down to stealing one of Wendy's for practice than anything else.

He dropped down into a seat next to Kyle. "Where's Stan?" he asked.

Kyle looked up from the sheet of maths problems he'd been checking over. "Huh?"

"Where's Stan?"

Kyle frowned, and looked around. "Dude, what? He was here a second ago."

"Is that his homework?" Kenny asked.

"Yeah, he asked me to look over it for him. Where the hell has he gone?"

"Hey, beats me. I just got here. What've I got today?"

Kyle scowled at him. "Kenny, I don't know your timetable. Wendy does."

"Oh. Well, do you know what I have first?"

Kyle shook his head. "I know we have English before lunch."

"That doesn't help me, Kyle."

Rolling his eyes, Kyle turned his attention back to Stan's homework. "Wait 'til Wendy gets here. Seriously though, it's February. How do you not know your timetable yet?"

"Because Wendy knows it," Kenny replied, as if the answer was obvious.

"I still don't get how you two started hanging out so much," Kyle said.

Kenny shrugged. "We just did, I guess." He didn't want to say _Because you and Stan kept hanging out together and ditching me_.

"Oh, there they are," Kyle said suddenly, looking towards the doorway.

Kenny followed his gaze. Wendy and Stan had just walked in, deep in conversation. They caught sight of Kyle and Kenny, and headed over.

"Wendy, awesome," Kenny said, relieved. "What do I have first thing?"

"Maths. We all do." She took a seat next to him. "Good morning to you too, I had a great weekend, thanks for asking," she added sarcastically.

"Kyle! You knew that, then!"

Kyle shrugged. "Why else would I be checking Stan's homework right now?"

"Thanks, man," Stan said, sitting down next to Kyle and leaning over his shoulder. "Oh. You've corrected a lot, huh."

"Seriously, did you get Cartman to do this for you or something?"

"Ugh." Stan put his head in his hands. "I was so _dead_ all yesterday. After Cartman kicked us out I just went home and went back to sleep."

Kenny laughed. "Really? That sucks for _you_."

"Shut up," Stan mumbled indistinctly. "Just because you stay up completely wired after drinking for hours."

"I'm telling you, Stan, first class way to avoid a hangover."

Wendy wrinkled her nose. "I take it you guys had fun Saturday night then?"

"Yeah. Cartman kept threatening to throw us out, though."

"He's such a dickhead."

"Who's a dickhead?" Cartman asked, appearing behind Wendy.

"You're a dickhead," Kyle said.

"Yeah, lard ass, it's you," Kenny confirmed.

Cartman sat down behind Wendy. "You guys are such assholes."

* * *

The day dragged. It seemed like it was taking hours for it to even get _close_ to lunch time. Having made the mistake of skipping breakfast, Kenny found himself idly watching the clock most of the way through his lessons, until finally, there was only one period to go.

"I hate this period," Cartman muttered. He was leant against the lockers with his hands shoved into his pockets. "It's like – I can _feel_ lunch time taunting us."

"I know what you mean, man," Kenny scowled.

Cartman scuffed his shoe against the floor. "Where the fuck is Testaburger?"

Kenny nodded. "Over there. Just talking to Stan." He frowned. "Again."

"Again?"

"Yeah, he ditched Kyle in homeroom to go see her this morning, I think."

Cartman stared. "He _ditched_ his Jew boyfriend to hang with Wendy?"

"You know Stan and Kyle aren't _really_ gay for each other, right?"

Cartman ignored him. "Ho!" he said, raising his voice a little. "Hurry the fuck up!"

"Keep your fat on, Cartman!" Wendy called back. She half-turned towards Stan and said, "I'll catch up with you at lunch."

"See you, Wends."

Once he was out of sight, Kenny gave her a suggestive look. "Stan, eh?"

Wendy rolled her eyes. "We were just talking, Kenny. You don't need to obsessively follow my love life like this."

"Yes, I do."

She sighed. "Let's just go to English, guys, or we're gonna be late."

"Only because _you_ were making eyes at that pussy for ten minutes," Cartman said.

Wendy glared at him. "We were _talking_ for like, _two_ minutes," she bit back. "Stan's my friend."

"We're your friends."

"I have other friends, Cartman."

He snorted. "Yeah, but we're the coolest ones."

Kenny coughed loudly. "Right. I'm going to class. Follow me when you stop bitching at each other."

He headed off, and the two of them trailed after him, still arguing.


	2. Malvolio's Garters

Disclaimer: Not only do I not own South Park, but I don't own Shakespeare. A number of quotes in this chapter - and in subsequent chapters - are quoted directly from the play 'Othello'. Lyric lines are 'Sometimes' by Donkeyboy.

Note: Couple of comments I need to make on style. I am trying out a few things with this story, namely different methods of communication. I'm going to be heavily using text messages, which hopefully won't get too confusing. There's also a large section of this chapter in which notes are passed, so again, I hope I haven't messed up and made that completely unintelligible. I just want to say that any spelling mistakes and grammar errors in written/typed communication between the characters is probably intentional. Anywhere else, it's just me being dumb, but if I write "you're" as "your" in a text message, it's deliberate. Anyway, thank you, and please enjoy. This is a very Craig and Kenny heavy chapter, which I am glad of because the next one isn't. Anyone who is reading that's waiting for the Candy side of things to start up...seriously, don't worry. It's coming.

x

**Chapter Two  
****Malvolio's Garters**

_people change, change because of who i am  
if you don't, then you and i won't get along _

**

* * *

**

English, it turned out, had been nothing worth hurrying towards.

"Shakespeare," Kenny groaned, catching sight of the books laid out on each desk. "I fucking knew we couldn't escape that bastard forever."

Wendy gave him a reproachful look. "There's a _reason_ he's one of the most famous writers of all time, Kenny."

"It's just bullshit!"

"Shakespeare isn't _bullshit_ –"

"He _makes up words_, Wendy."

She rolled her eyes. "You're just pissy because of 'Twelfth Night'."

"That play wasn't funny, goddamnit. And I still can't get that image of Malvolio out of my head."

"I thought you were a fan of orange?" Wendy asked, hiding her smirk in her hand.

"_Yellow. _They were _yellow_ garters. And just because I wasn't paying attention didn't mean that bastard had to come up and _prance in my face –" _

"Everyone, sit down immediately," said a quiet voice from the doorway.

Everyone sat, as Miss Clementine, the English teacher, made her way slowly to the front of the room.

She was an old woman with a soft voice and a gentle temper. She never shouted, rarely lectured, and only issued detentions on very rare occasions. But she inspired in her students a strong degree of fear and obedience, arising from her polite vitriol and history of handing out diabolically vengeful punishments.

She made her way to the front of the class and sat down at her desk. Kenny made a concerted effort to keep the shuffling of his books as he looked for his pencil case down to a minimum. Looking up, he saw Wendy heading towards him. Over the top of her head, Cartman sent him a significant look, and Kenny dropped his bag onto the chair next to him. Wendy cast him a quick, odd look, and then sat down directly in front of him. As Kenny expected, Cartman immediately took the seat next to her.

"'The Tragedy of Othello'," Miss Clementine said, her voice remarkably clear and controlled for a woman of her age. She held up a copy of the play. "'The Moor of Venice'."

There was a moment of silence, and then came the expected – "I'm sorry, _what_?"

"Othello, Eric," she said patiently.

"Yeah, but – _what_ did you say he was?"

"A Moor. He is black."

"You can call them that? For real?" Cartman looked at his book in genuine surprise. "I didn't know Shakespeare wrote about slaves."

"Othello's a general, dipshit," Wendy shot at him.

"Thank you, Wendy. Although I would thank you not to swear in my classroom."

"...Sorry."

"But..." Cartman paused, looking as if he was trying to work out an extremely difficult problem. "But he's _black_."

"Yes. The clue is somewhat in the title of the play."

"But he's a general."

"Indeed."

"Like, in the army or something."

"That is correct," Miss Clementine said, her tone still patient.

"And he's _black_."

"Honestly!" Wendy exclaimed suddenly, turning to Cartman with a disbelieving look on her face. "Are you _completely_ blinded by your own bigotry?"

"No!"

_Still giving him the benefit of the doubt, _Kenny thought fondly. _Even after all this time._

"Eric," Miss Clementine said, and she was smiling slightly. "I can assure you – you are the one person in this room, besides the ever-eager Miss Testaburger, who I am certain is going to enjoy this play."

Cartman snorted. "Yeah, sure."

Miss Clementine smiled, and opened the book in front of her. "We will begin. Kyle, I would like you to read for Roderigo. Leopold, please read for Brabantio. And Eric, I would be grateful if you could take on the role of Iago."

Cartman said, "Bullcrap, I don't wanna read!" at about the same time Butters said, "Um...teacher? I don't have a – a book."

"Spare over here, Butters," Kenny said, and tossed a copy across to him.

"You're reading, Eric, whether you want to or not. Trust me, I believe you will find you have a lot in common with this particular character." There was a knock on the classroom door. "Come in."

Craig came into the room. "Sorry I'm late," he said, heading for the teacher's desk and dropping a note onto it. "Orthodontist's appointment."

"Sit down, Craig. We're starting 'Othello'. There are no more copies so I'm afraid you will have to share."

Craig glanced quickly around the room, looking for a seat, and made his way towards Kenny.

"Shift your bag," he said, pulling out the chair.

"Alright," Miss Clementine said, "Kyle, if you would."

"Tush, never tell me," Kyle began, his tone staccato and reluctant, amidst a few snickers. Stan's poorly-stifled giggle was loudest.

Kenny felt Craig elbowing him in the side. "Shove the book over," he muttered.

"Wouldn't hurt to say please, you know," Kenny told him, lifting his arm off the table and sliding the book over so Craig could see it.

"You don't –" Craig began, and then looked up at Miss Clementine nervously. Deciding against being caught talking in class, he grabbed one of Kenny's pencils and wrote on the corner of the page, _You don't know that, McCormick. Maybe politeness gives me crabs._

_You have crabs? _Kenny wrote back.

Craig's sarcasm was even evident in his pencilled reply. _Yes. I have crabs._

_The shellfish or the disease? _Kenny couldn't resist.

Craig gave him a scathing look, and did not reply.

"As loving his own pride and purposes," Cartman was saying, "evades them with a bomb assed circumstance –"

"_Bombast_, Eric."

"- bombast circumstance, horribly stuffed with – hey, is this the black guy he's talking about?"

"There will be time for discussion later."

"Seriously, this speech goes on _forever_."

"Twenty six lines, and I have full faith that you can manage everyone of them."

"I don't," Kenny heard Wendy say under her breath. Cartman gave her a weird sideways glare.

"Horribly stuffed with epithets of war," he continued, pointedly annunciating each word, as Wendy rolled her eyes.

The speech was pretty boring. Kenny found his eyes drifting back over the notes on the corner of the page. Twirling his pencil round, he hovered the nib above the paper, and then wrote, _If it's the shellfish, can I have one? I bet crabs make killer pets._

Craig glanced down. His eyes travelled and across what Kenny had written, and then he went back to ignoring him.

Kenn didn't mind. He'd had an idea.

_I bet crabs would be awesome to train up for war. They do that crazy sideways shuffle thing which would completely fuck with the enemy's head. And I bet you could replace one of their claws with, like, a machine gun or something._

This time, Craig did reply.

_No,_ he wrote, very slowly and deliberately. _They would be horrible in a battlezone. You moron._

_Why?_

_Their shells are too soft._

_That's a weird thing to know Craig._

_No it isn't._

_Yeah it kinda is._

_And you couldn't attach a machine gun to their claw. It would be too heavy._

_Not if you had a REALLY BIG CRAB!_ Deciding to illustrate his point, Kenny doodled a giant, machine-gun laden crab underneath his comment. Out of the corner of his eye, he distinctly saw Craig smirk.

_You drew the enemy tank in front of the crab, asshat, _he wrote then.

_So?_ Kenny jotted back.

_CRABS WALK SIDEWAYS, you said it yourself. How's Kingler II going to get them now?_

_Fine_. He added more tanks, and a couple of gun turrets, in a circle around the crab. _Now he can engage in organised clockwise destruction._

_What if the enemies has crabs?_

_The enemies does have crabs, they're whores. HAHA!_

_GIANT CRABS FUCKTARD. _Pulling the book towards him a little more, Craig pencilled in a bigger crab on the other side of the page, equally armed with a claw-gun, but also...

_A machete? We didn't say anything about machetes douche bag._

_THERE ARE NO RULES IN HELL._

Kenny spent the next fifteen minutes trying to arm his forces against Craig's machete crabs, only to be thwarted when, in a burst of initiative, Craig drew an armadillo.

_It's an armadillo, jackass,_ he scribbled, in response to Kenny's inquisitive look. _Best bit? Clue is in the name: IT'S ALREADY ARMORED._

The armadillo wreaked swift havoc, taking revenge for the scores of gunmen Kingler II had taken down. Kenny was startled away from adding a bazooka to his crab's other claw by someone slamming their hands on the desk in front of him. He jerked his head upwards, and saw Wendy glaring at Cartman. He glanced at the clock. She'd lasted longer than usual today.

"Tupping!" she exclaimed. "It says _tupping!_ Not _fucking!"_

"It means the same thing!" Cartman said, defensively. "Don't get your panties in a bunch."

"You cannot take liberties with Shakespeare!_"_ Wendy's voice was getting higher and higher.

Craig gave Kenny a look that said, 'Do _you_ know what this is about?'

Kenny shrugged. He couldn't find 'tupped' or 'fucked' anywhere under their giant mecha-crab battle. He had to flip a few pages on to find it, and he pointed it out to Craig, who whispered, "oh."

_Now, very now_, had written Shakespeare, _an old black ram is tupping your white ewe._

_What is tupping, _Craig Tucker wrote underneath it, _and why do we care that sheep are doing it._

_I hate Shakespeare,_ Kenny replied.

* * *

"That play is so boring," Stan groaned, sinking down opposite Wendy at her lunch table.

"It's really not," she told him. "In my opinion, it's one of his most thoughtful works."

"Thoughtful _is_ boring, Wends," Kenny pointed out, taking the seat next to her.

She frowned. Maybe if people put a little _more_ thought into their lives every day, _considered_ things a bit more – no, stop it there, Wendy. She was getting pious again, and Bebe had warned her not to do that, not even in her head. She cast a sideways glance at the girl sitting next to her, as if somehow, by mere proximity, she could read her mind.

"Dude, that Iago guy is _awesome_." Cartman sat down on Kenny's other side. Inwardly, she groaned a little. Great, that would help. A vote of confidence for Shakespeare from everyone's favourite academic, _Eric Cartman_. "I read ahead a bit in the summaries and you know what he does? He fucks with _everyone_!"

"Which one was Iago?" Kenny asked.

Wendy stared at him. "Were you paying attention at _all_?"

"No, not really," he admitted, biting into a sandwich.

"Honestly!"

"Yeah, honestly."

"I don't think anyone was," Bebe said.

"I was!" Cartman shot back.

"You were _reading_, fatass. Clementine would have skinned you if you'd missed a line."

"'Ey, at least I _can_ read."

_It's a lost cause_, she told herself. _Just let it go. They'll change their minds come exam time._

"Where's Kyle?" she asked Stan.

"Had to double back to his locker to get his lunch." He snickered. "Since he came in hungover on Sunday his mom's been on this massive kosher kick to 'flush the evil out of him', or something."

"Wendy, can I have your pudding?" Kenny asked.

She pushed it over. "Sure. I hate vanilla anyway."

"You can have mine, Kenny," Cartman said hastily, dropping it onto Kenny's tray.

Kenny eyed it suspiciously. "Why?" he questioned. "What have you done to it?"

"Nothing, Kenny! Don't be stupid. I always give you my pudding."

"...No, you don't. You always – _ow!_ Oh, right, yeah. Always."

When he turned back to his lunch, and Wendy could catch his eye, she raised her eyebrows. Kenny's only reply was to roll his eyes and peel back the lids of both puddings before Cartman could change his mind.

"Hey guys," came Kyle's voice from behind her. He headed round the table and sat down next to Stan. "What's up?"

"I hate Shakespeare," Kenny informed him.

"You've always hated Shakespeare," Kyle said. "Ever since that time in ninth grade we went to see 'Twelfth Night'."

"It was a fucked up play, alright?"

"'Othello's much better," Kyle assured him. "Lots of treachery and deviousness and pretty girls and prostitutes."

_That_ seemed to get Kenny's attention. Wendy wondered why she hadn't tried that in the first place. "Prostitutes?"

"Ambiguous prostitutes," she felt the need to point out. "It's never _actually_ said that she's –"

Kyle grinned at her. "I knew you were gonna say that."

"So boys," Bebe said, digging a perfectly rounded nail into the skin of her tangerine. "How was your little get-together over the weekend?"

"'Little get-together'," Cartman scoffed.

"It was pretty good," Kyle said. "My mom gave me hell afterwards."

"And Kenny got _blasted_..."

The conversation drifted over to stories from Saturday night. Biting into her apple, Wendy slid her free hand into her pocket and pulled out her phone. Keeping it under the table, she sent a rapid text to Kenny.

09/28/2010 13:06  
Wendy  
Why is Cartman being so weird? x

Kenny stopped halfway through his second pudding to reach for his phone. He frowned at her discreetly when he saw who his message was from, and then keyed in a reply.

09/28/2010 13:08  
Kenny  
he likes u :P

09/28/2010 13:09  
Wendy  
No but seriously. x

09/28/2010 13:11  
Kenny  
no im pretty sure its seriously this time. he gave me his pudding!

09/28/2010 13:14  
Wendy  
Which is why I doubt it's for real. If Cartman feels emotion the first thing he does is hide it, not display it through pudding transfer. Scheme praps? x

09/28/2010 13:14  
Kenny  
well, w/e, i like this scheme. free pudding, bam

09/28/2010 13:15  
Wendy  
You're useless x

09/28/2010 13:15  
Kenny  
useless with 2 puddings. DID I MENTION BAM

Sliding her phone back into her pocket, Wendy watched with mild disgust as Kenny ran his tongue around the inside rim of the pots.

"You coming round to dinner tonight?" she asked, aloud.

"You think I'd miss Mrs Testaburger's Pot Roast Monday?" he replied, eyebrows raised sceptically.

"Dumb question."

"What have we got this afternoon?"

"Drama."

Kenny groaned. "Oh, great, more plays, I can't wait. So long as it's not fucking _Shakespeare_ again. If that asshole is the driving force between two of my classes at once, I am going to go batshit crazy all _over_ this place."

* * *

Craig was slouched against a row of lockers, trying to pick some sweetcorn out of his teeth. Next to him, Clyde was trying to make two lockers-worth of things fit into his (saddeningly single-sized) locker.

"I fucking hate having extra practice on Mondays," he complained. "It's like, my heaviest day. I have all these dumb books plus my gym bag...there isn't _space_!"

"You could just leave your gym bag in the locker room," Craig pointed out. "It seems to work fine for every other asshole on the team."

Clyde shook his head. "_Sabotage_, man. You've gotta be vigilant. Constantly. Harry Potter style."

Craig snorted. "You've been hanging out with Tweek too much."

"No, dude – just enough to open my eyes to the terror of the world," he said, straight faced.

"You're joking." Craig's tone was flat.

"I'm not."

"You're joking, or we're not friends anymore. I can't deal with two Tweeks."

Clyde slammed the door of his locker loudly – _finally_ – and let out a single "Ha!" of triumph.

"It's an inantimate object, Clyde. There was never an actual competition."

"If there had been, though," he said, tapping the locker with his outstretched index finger. "I totally just kicked inanimate's _ass_. And yeah, I'm joking. Come on, Drama."

"I fucking hate Drama." Craig pushed himself away from the lockers and fell into step alongside Clyde.

"You fucking hate everything," Clyde reminded him.

"Drama's really faggy, though."

"Hey, it's not _that_ faggy. Wendy was telling me how in Shakespeare's time, chicks weren't allowed on the stage, so they had to dress up guys whose balls hadn't dropped in wigs and make up and shit. It's not faggy like that was faggy."

Craig raised his eyebrows. "Wendy _Testaburger_?"

"No, Wendy the fast food mascot. Of course fucking Testaburger."

"Since when do you talk to her?"

"Since she went up a bra size and started wearing skirts," Clyde said, shrugging. "And hell, for a hot chick, she's got a lot more going on upstairs than normal."

"As if you care about what's going on upstairs."

"I don't _not_ care."

Craig grinned. "Gonna have to fight Cartman for her."

Clyde laughed. "Oh, come on, Craig. Like that asshole has a chance with Wendy. Or anyone," he added.

"Bet he'd have a chance with his _mom_," Craig said, his grin turning wicked.

Clyde choked on his laugh. "No way, dude, not even she's that fucked up. She's a whore but she has _standards_. Hey, maybe I'd grant her incest, but to do the dirty with Cartman? No one's ever gonna be that shit faced."

"I swear to God, Clyde, if Wendy picks that douche over you I'm going to laugh and laugh until I piss myself."

Clyde's confident smile stayed in place. "_Not_ going to happen," and pushed open the door leading down to the Drama room, just in time to hear a wail pierce the air.

"_I am going to go batshit crazy all over this place!_"

Craig raised his eyebrows. Kenny was standing a few feet in front of them, staring in abject horror at the board. Following his gaze, Craig suddenly understood _why_.

_SCHOOL PLAY  
December 14__th__  
Shakespeare's 'Othello'  
Auditions Wednesday & Thursday this week  
YOU WILL ALL BE INVOLVED IN ONE CAPACITY OR ANOTHER_

"Aw, for fuck's sake," Craig complained. "That shitty play we're doing in English?"

Overhearing him, Kenny turned around. He looked like the thought of facing the play again was making him sick. "Dude, I know. _Two _lessons with it. Do you have any idea how bad Wendy is going to get?" He shook his head despairingly.

"I'd be happy to take her off your hands," Clyde said, under his breath. Then he added, "and onto my –"

Craig elbowed him in the ribs. "Come on, let's get seat."

"I'm gonna sit by Wendy," he said, nodding towards her. Kenny was still standing morosely by the doorway, leaving his usual seat next to Wendy vacant. Craig knew Clyde well enough to know he wasn't going to let an opportunity like that slide.

"Craig," Kenny said, suddenly, "sit by me. I think we're supposed to use our texts from English. Maybe if she sees we're sharing she'll leave us out."

"That's not likely," Craig said. "'You will all be involved' is in capitals. Delancey means business."

Kenny put his hands on Craig's shoulders, something like desperation lingering in his eyes. "I am _not_ getting involved in a Shakespeare play. It will be like 'Twelfth Night' all over again, only _worse_."

"'Twelfth Night'?" Craig repeated blankly. "You mean that play we saw in Denver? Was that Shakespeare?"

"Craig," Kenny said, very seriously. "Craig. If I am anywhere near Wendy over the next two days she is going to make it her _life's mission_ to educate me in the ways of the bard by forcing me into this play. You have to help me."

"You're taking this crazy serious," Craig told him.

"I'm melodramatic," Kenny said. "It comes from dying."

Craig shook Kenny's hands off his shoulders. "Whatever, come on. We need good seats."

"_Good?_" Kenny sounded scandalised.

"Yeah. About the middle of the room."

"Why?"

Craig stared at him. "How often am I picked on in class?"

"Not that often."

"How often are _you_ picked on in class?"

Kenny pulled a face. "Like, every lesson."

"Then trust me, crap head," he said, and took a seat smack bang in the middle of the room. Kenny sat down next to him.

"Did you take the book from earlier?"

"Yeah." Craig pulled it out of his bag. "We're fucked if Delancey asks us to read from Kingler's battleground."

"Kingler II," Kenny corrected, flipping through to that page. "Oh."

They'd done quite a number on that page, Craig reflected. Here and there Craig could pick out words or names underneath the crustacean devastation, but distinguishing whole sentences, let alone speeches, was out of the question.

"Oh well. Not like I'm gonna be auditioning for Roderigo or –" he squinted – "Ago."

"I think it's Iago. Cartman was talking about it earlier." Kenny looked up. "Fuck is he, anyway?"

"I honestly don't care." Craig bent over the book. "I really can't see any 'I's here in his name."

"That's because you incorporated them into Kingler II's legs."

"Oh yeah." He looked up. "Delancey's come out of her cupboard."

The Drama teacher had, indeed, emerged from her supply, just off the small, low stage at the far end of the room. She sat down at the edge of the stage, setting a few spare copies of 'Othello' next to her, waiting patiently as the last few students filed into the room.

"Oh, there's Cartman," Kenny said, looking over Craig's shoulder. Turning round, he saw Cartman standing in the doorway, scanning the room. Behind him were Stan and Token.

"Where the hell have those three been?" Craig asked. "_Together?_"

Kenny shrugged. "Beats the fuck outta me. I thought Cartman was pissed at Stan."

"Why?"

"Cartman's always pissed with someone."

It was true, Craig thought. Cartman's vendettas were shallow, frequent, and for the most part, fleeting. In truth, it was only his inexplicable grudge against Kyle that had survived, intact, over the years.

"Marsh, was there anyone following on?" Mrs Delancey asked.

"No, we're the last, I think."

"Good. Close the door behind you, and take a seat. As you can see –" she gestured to the board behind her – "for the remainder of this term, we're going to be working on 'Othello'. Mid December, we're going to be putting it on in the community hall, so you'd better work hard. It's your asses that are on the line, not mine. And yeah, all of you are going to be involved. No, there's no 'get out' clauses. You're backstage or you're onstage. Clear?"

A couple of hands that had hopefully been raised went down. Mrs Delancey was incredibly forthright and _very_ in favour of class participation. If she said they were all going to be involved, then by God, they were _all_ going to be involved.

"Oh fuck off," Craig mumbled, slumping forward onto his desk and pulling his hat down over his face.

"Right. I expect full commitment from all of you. 'Othello' is a deep, complex play with vibrant characters and strong messages that transcend time and context and you _will_ pour your stony little teenage hearts into this performance _so help me God_." She took a breath. "Even those of you who are lacking in hearts. _Cartman_."

Craig turned with the rest of the class to look at Cartman, slouched in a chair at the back of the room. He held his hands up defensively. "Don't look at me, I'm all for this play. I'm gonna try out for Iago."

Mrs Delancey stared at him for amount, and then her expression cleared. "Well," she said. "Iago was a soldier, not an overweight bastard child –"

"'_Ey!_"

" – but he certainly had your attitude to morality, Cartman. Perhaps you can actually pull this one out of your ass and I'll be given the dubious pleasure of passing you."

"Doubt it," Craig heard Kenny mumble. "Assface doesn't realise he's going to have to learn all those boring ass speeches, I bet."

Craig smirked. "That's gonna be fucking hilarious."

"You gonna audition?"

"Like hell," Craig said shortly. "I'm gonna keep my head down until she forces me into something."

"I've got a better idea," Kenny replied. "We piss her off so totally and completely that she'll do anything not to have us in her precious play."

Craig gave Kenny a thoughtful look. "Do you have a plan?"

"I will by the end of this class," Kenny said. He had a curious smile on his face, gleeful and wicked and reckless, and Craig suddenly realised that maybe hanging out with Eric Cartman had its side effects.


	3. Acting Out

Disclaimer: Still don't own South Park or Othello. Lyrics lines: The Spell by Alphabeat, and no, I'm not proud of listening to it.

Note: This chapter has taken me a fucking ridiculously long time to get right and it's still not good. Hopefully, it's passable, because I just want it to be out of my life. I've had to split it into two already, and this one STILL runs on to twice the length of the last two. I don't like it. There's a lot of focus on Candy here and I think Kenny and Craig's prank is lame. But like I said, I just want it out of my life. This and the next chapter are very Candy-heavy, but the pairing needed setting up. Now that's out of the way, the show can go on. Please try to enjoy.

x

**Chapter Three  
Acting Out**

_you put a spell on me, I don't know what to do_  
_it's an ability that draws me closer to you _

* * *

"Man, I can _smell_ how much I'm gonna enjoy this meal."

Wendy punched him in the shoulder. "Kenny, you're not focusing."

"Wendy!" he whined. "I come over on Mondays for _food_, not tutoring. Tutoring is _Wednesdays_."

"Well, I'm tutoring Bebe this Wednesday," she said, strictly. "And I want some time to focus on my audition, too."

"Uuuuugh."

She looked down at him, her expression stern. "You ought to put some work in, too. _Everyone_ has to audition."

"No," Kenny corrected her, sitting up and leaning against the leg of her desk. "Everyone has to be _involved_. I'm gonna be pulling the curtain or some shit."

"I think you'll find Mrs Delancey said everyone had to audition for at least one character," Wendy said.

"...No way."

"Way." Wendy smiled, a little cruelly.

"Don't do that." He waved his hand. "That creepy smile thing. You look like Cartman when he gets an idea. It makes me feel like I'm going to die."

Wendy's smile faded. "Speaking of Cartman..." she began.

Kenny held a finger up to stop her. He'd known this was coming. "There's no point asking me. You know that. We've been through this before."

"But you said," Wendy said, leaning over to her cabinet and plucking up her phone. She turned it round a few seconds later, the screen displaying one of their lunchtime texts. "You said, you thought it might be for real this time."

"Yeah but I think that _everytime_," he pointed out. "Why, does it bother you he might have a thing for you?"

She frowned. "A little, if I'm honest."

Kenny looked up at her. "How come? You hang out with him like, pretty much all the time."

"I hang out with _you_ all the time, too." Wendy pursed her lips. "I don't know. Maybe because it's _Cartman_?

"He's just a guy," Kenny said, wincing a little at the weakness of his own counter-argument.

"Yeah, sure," Wendy snorted. "Just a guy who _tried to convince my parents I was dead last summer_."

"He said he was sorry!"

"And that makes it okay?"

Kenny gave her a serious look. "It's Cartman, Wends. 'Sorry' is about as good as you're ever going to get."

Wendy let out an exasperated noise and flopped backwards onto her bed, dropping her copy of 'Othello' onto her face. "I just don't understand why he _does_ this. Every now and then, he gets it into his head that he's going to start following me around like a lost dog or something. And he knows I'm not stupid – he _knows_ I'm going to think that he...well, you know, that he's interested in me or something. Most of the time I think he's just trying to fuck with my head. That's _just_ like him."

"Most of the time?" Kenny asked, watching her.

Wendy pulled the book off her face and sat up. Her cheeks were a little red. "_Most_ of the time," she confirmed. "But sometimes...oh, I don't know. He's impossible to work out. It just feels like he's trying to make me _think_ he likes me, so I'll like him or something, so he can turn around and be like 'ha ha ha ha ha ha, I made you like me.'" She waved her hands and imitated Cartman's singsong voice.

"And if he _was_ doing that," Kenny said, picking his words carefully. "Would it have been working?"

"Kenny..."

"I'm just asking," he said defensively. "I have a right to ask!"

"No," she said, and then she sighed. "_Sometimes_. Not like...well, it's not like I actually like him. But there are these moments, when he's in one of his 'follow me around' moods, when he'll say something or do something that's just so – so – I don't know, I don't mean 'not like him', just...he'll do something odd, or weird, or –" she grimaced – "_sweet_. And then it'll make me wonder. And I know I shouldn't and I know you warned me, and you_ said _not to humanise him, but..."

"Wendy," Kenny said, gently. "If there's one thing Eric Cartman's pretty fucking good at, it's mind games, okay? If he's trying to play you, then he's trying to play you. And if he ends up upsetting you I'll break his face, yeah?"

"Oh, that won't happen." Wendy waved her hand dismissively. "I know better than to _actually_ fall for him, don't worry. Just keep an eye on me if he starts sweet-talking me into helping out his plans for world domination or something. You promise?"

"I promise," Kenny laughed.

"I'm serious," Wendy said, and indeed, she did look deadly serious. "If I start doing favours for him, or lying for him, or _justifying_ things, you have to put the bullet right here." She held two fingers just behind her ear.

"It's better and kinder for everyone that way," he agreed.

Suddenly, her eyes narrowed. "Actually," she said, as if remembering something, "actually, I have a bone to pick with you, Kenny. You're _helping_ him."

"Er..."

"No, you are. Today in English, you deliberately moved your bag so I wouldn't sit by you. Didn't you?"

Kenny shrugged. "I was just moving my bag, Wends. You're being paranoid. Cartman's getting in your head after all."

"You said you thought it was genuine this time," she said accusatorily.

"Well, I do. Face it, Wendy. You're pretty hot. You're smart. You're the only girl he actually _talks_ to. It's gonna happen, sooner or later."

"_What?_" Wendy's face went red. "You think we're going to -?"

"Hell if I know. But I'll be fucking shocked if he gets through school without ever actually getting a crush on you."

"That's impossible," she said resolutely. "He'd need a heart for that."

"Wendy!" Mrs Testaburger's voice drifted up the stairs. "Dinner's ready!"

"Fuck yes!" Kenny exclaimed, bouncing to his feet. "Pot roast Mondays, here we go!" He could feel Wendy rolling her eyes behind him as she followed him downstairs, but he didn't really care. And maybe if he spun out dinner long enough, she wouldn't make him go back to reading that dumb ass play. It was worth a shot.

At the bottom of the stairs, his phone started to vibrate violently in his pocket.

"Ack, hang on," he said, fishing it out. "Cartman. I'll be right through, Wends, just got to see what fatass wants."

"Don't – um – tell him anything I said about him, okay?" Wendy coloured slightly. Kenny grinned.

"As if." He flipped open his phone. "I hope you realise that at this moment in time you are standing between me and pot roast," he said."

"Kenny, you poor piece of shit." Cartman's voice came over the line, and it seemed as if he had decided to ignore whatever Kenny was saying because he then asked, "where the fuck are you?"

"I'm at Wendy's," he replied. "Like I am every Monday. You know this, Cartman."

"No, I told you to skip hanging with that bitch tonight and come round mine, remember?"

"As a matter of fact, no, I don't."

Cartman made a vague sound of displeasure. Over the phone, it sounded something like a growl mixed with a squeal. "Fuck's sake, you're useless, Kenny."

"Useless and about to be filled with Mrs Testaburger's delicious home cooking," Kenny reminded him. "Talk to you later, Cartman."

"Kenny, wait, no – you stupid fag, don't you –"

Kenny hung up. He was _starving_.

* * *

Cartman glared at his phone, as if it was somehow its fault that Kenny was a broke, food-grubbing piece of crap who'd chosen to spend the night with Wendy instead of him. Logical analysis would have assured him it wasn't, but then again, Cartman's logic analyses often had the habit of turning up results that were far from rational.

He didn't see why Wendy's parents liked Kenny so fucking much anyway. He was a grabby little cocksucker with no prospects, who rode a motorcycle more beat up than his bitch-ass mother's ugly face. It just seemed plain irresponsible that the Testaburgers let their little girl hang out with an asshole like that.

There was a small voice in the back of his head that reminded him that he rode a beat up motorcycle, too, and he rode it a hell of a lot more dangerously than Kenny – and he'd done a hell of a lot of worse things than Kenny, too.

But, he thought, _he_ was _going_ places in life – he had fucking awesome grades, after all, and he had brains, not book-smarts. And, he added, victoriously, he wasn't _poor_.

What he was, though, was in a tremendously bad mood. Pissed off, he plugged in a short text. As soon as it had sent, he dropped his phone sullenly onto the bed next to him.

The day had started to go downhill when he'd seen Wendy talking to Stan just before lunch. He _hated_ when she talked to that asshole. He was sure Stan was just looking for another opportunity to try to get back with. He was _always_ trying to get back with Wendy. Sure, he hadn't asked her out in about four years, but that was how guys like him worked: sneakily, and slowly.

_He's been taking lessons from the Jew,_ Cartman thought, scowling at his ceiling.

Then, completely unbidden, the image of Wendy hooking up with the Jew came into his mind, and he felt sick.

It was impossible for him to pinpoint the exact moment he started falling for her. There wasn't, really, any falling to speak of. As far as he could remember, it had just felt like one day, she had been her usual annoying, sanctimonious self, and then the next, he'd not ever wanted to stop staring at her.

Nothing had changed. There'd been no big shift. But all of a sudden, he couldn't ignore her, and he started doing _anything_ to get her attention. Some of it had been stupid shit – like ordering twenty pizzas to her door the weekend her parents had gone away, telling them they were needed for 'Wendy's Playboy Party' – but some had actually turned out to be pretty fucking useful, like joining the Debate Club. Every time he caught himself looking at her, or making an excuse to end up at the mall the same day he'd heard her tell Bebe she was going in with her mom, he'd had to mentally snap himself out of it. It was fucking ridiculous, going starry-eyed over some chick like that, like he was fucking _Stan_ or something.

It was a couple of days after he'd started using that excuse that he realised maybe being Stan wasn't such a bad thing. Stan was a gigantic pussy who let Kyle Jewflovski dictate right and wrong for him, with a bitchy sister and a dumb-as-shit dad, but Stan was also the guy who spent most of seventh grade with Wendy's hand intertwined with his. Stan also got to run his hands through Wendy's hair, and see her breathless and flushed and glassy-eyed after making out with her. _Stan_ got _Wendy_ so maybe being a starry-eyed sap-dumpster actually wasn't that bad. He decided to put it to the test.

Cartman managed it for two hours and thirty six minutes, and they were the lousiest, most boring two hours and thirty six minutes of his life. He told himself the Wendy thing would go away, and went to lock Butters in the dumpster.

The Wendy thing didn't go away. She broke up with Stan (thank fuck), and for a while, Cartman felt better. He'd almost got himself believing the whole 'going mushy when she looked at him' crap had been completely down to wanting to spite Stan, until something happened that changed everything.

Wendy and Kenny became friends.

He still didn't understand how the hell it happened. One day, they just started hanging out, as if they'd always been best buds or something. Cartman didn't like it. Kenny was a total pervert, even if he was the only guy who had as little luck with chicks as Cartman did. The worst part, though, the absolutely fucking worst, was that if he was honest, Cartman knew that Kenny was a nice guy. More than nice, he was actually pretty cool, and even a bit badass, in a way Stan wasn't. Kenny, the little asshole, was the exact middle point between Stan and Cartman, and Wendy _wasn't_ going to go for Eric Mark 1 if she could have the 'with extra vagina' version in the form of Kenny McCormick.

It took him nearly a whole hour after that thought had crossed his mind to realise he hadn't got over the Wendy thing. So he did the rational thing – the only thing he could have done, really, given the circumstances – and attached himself to Kenny and Wendy like a barnacle.

There was less resistance than he'd been expecting. Wendy hadn't been happy, of course (which, to his mild surprise and complete horror, had actually _hurt_ his _feelings_), but Kenny had just sort of rolled with it. Months had gone by and somehow – to this day, he isn't even really sure how – they'd just become a set. Wendy had got used to him and then, little by little, they'd become friends.

It had been one of the weirdest transitions of his life, and every day had been fucking incredible. He'd done a pretty good job, more the most part, not letting his weakness for her slip. He knew that hippie bitch well enough to know that if she found out, she'd find a way to use it against him. Christ, she'd probably have him handing out _Save The Synagogue _pamphlets if she had her way.

And if it was her asking, he'd probably go and do it, too.

Every now and then, though, he faltered. On occasion, he'd find himself getting closer to her, gravitating into some strange place that felt so messed up and so normal all at once. He'd find himself helping her stack shit in her locker, or volunteering to help clean up Stark's Pond, or – he narrowed his eyes, remembering that lunchtime – giving Kenny his dessert to make himself look a bit more like the kind of guy a girl like Wendy could get with.

It was fucking stupid, and he knew it. He'd told himself time and time again that he needed to get over this, that it was holding him back, and it hadn't done a fucking thing. Wendy had snuck into his head one day and set up shop, and she showed no signs of leaving any time soon. As much as he tried to dismiss it as hippie-gypsy magic, there she stayed.

His phone beeped loudly next to him, and he jumped. He picked it up.

_1 New Message  
Wendy_

09/28/2010 19:45  
Eric  
Let Kenny go bitch

09/28/2010 20:11  
Wendy  
He's eating, fatass. You know how awesome eating can be, you do enough of it. He'll go see you after.

"I'm not fat!" Cartman said loudly when he read the text. Gritting his teeth, he replied.

09/28/2010 20:13  
Eric  
Least I dont eat with my vag like you

09/28/2010 20:18  
Wendy  
I...don't even know what sort of insult that's supposed to be. ?

It hadn't been a very good comeback, he had to admit. But he hadn't wanted to spend too long on a reply, in case Wendy though he was trying too hard to find things to say to her. He couldn't look like he cared, for God's sake. But he shouldn't text back _too_ fast, or he'd look like some clingy nutcase like Butters.

Shit, girls were hard. He couldn't quite bring himself to just not text her back, so he decided to change the topic.

09/28/2010 20:23  
Eric  
Who are you going to try out for in the play

09/28/2010 20:31  
Wendy  
Emilia. Obviously. I'm guessing you're going for Iago.

09/28/2010 20:32  
Wendy  
BTW Kenny just left x

09/28/2010 20:36  
Eric  
Hell yeah

09/28/2010 20:48  
Eric  
Ha youre going to officially be my bitch on stage!

09/28/2010 20:53  
Wendy  
Emilia is a FEMINIST.

The doorbell rang.

"_Mom!_" Cartman hollered. "_Door!_"

He heard his mother call something instinct from downstairs, and listened as she moved towards the door. Kenny's voice joined in.

"Get the fuck up here, Kenny!"

As Kenny climbed the stairs, he sent his reply.

09/28/2010 21:00  
Eric  
Whatever shes also my BITCH

"I'm here, Cartman," Kenny said, appearing in the doorway. "What do you want?"

Cartman shrugged. "Just to hang out. I'm in a bad mood. Need my punching bag."

Kenny rolled his eyes. "Just because I come _back_ doesn't mean it doesn't _hurt_, you ass." He frowned. "Why are you in a bad mood? Thought you were okay with the play."

Cartman's phone beeped, and he resisted the urge to check it at once. "It's not the play, fucker. It's Stan drooling all over Wendy again. It's fucking annoying the way she drags boys around with her when we're just trying to go about our days in peace and quiet."

Kenny looked sceptical. "Yeah, Wendy's such a fucking chore to be around," he said wryly.

"Yeah!"

The blond raised his eyebrows. "Might wanna check your phone. S'probably Wendy. Seeing as how you were texting her all through dinner."

"What's that supposed to mean? I can text the bitch if I want. You do, don't you?" He glared at Kenny, who simply smiled a smug smile.

09/28/2010 21:03  
Wendy  
She is Iago's wife, you ass rimmer, God damn you Cartman you are not ruining Shakespeare for me.

09/28/2010  
Eric  
Watch me.

He wasn't surprised when she didn't reply.

And just because he saved the one text where she'd slipped up and put a kiss, it didn't make him a pussy.

* * *

Craig yawned. God, these rehersals was _boring_. And they hadn't even got off the ground yet. He scowled at the ceiling, cursing football and all the football-related things that were making Clyde late for this period.

"Right-o," Delancey was saying, marshalling students into groups. "We're doing most of the casting today. Tomorrow we're doing the main roles, though, Othello, Iago, and Desdemona –"

"Token's Othello," Cartman interrupted.

Craig stared at him. He wasn't the only one, either. Wendy and Kenny, sat either side of him, turning to him with looks of disgust and resignation on their faces. He wondered why they put up with that fatass. Wendy had the 'hot and smart' thing going on, to the point where almost any guy in the school would be falling over himself backwards to hang out with her if it meant getting a chance to ogle her breasts. Sure, she was no Bebe Stevens, but there was something sexy about the unobtainable.

Or so Clyde had said. Frankly, when Craig looked at Wendy, all he saw was a whiny chick with a fucked up kink for being chewed out by a guy twice her size and three times her weight.

And Kenny - well, Kenny wasn't actually all that bad. He probably still hung out with Cartman because...well, Craig guessed habit was a hard thing to break.

"Why's that, Cartman?" Token asked, his expression neutral.

Token wasn't pissed off yet, Craig thought, but if Cartman gave the answer he knew he was going to give, then it wouldn't be long before he had Token's fist in his mouth.

"Because you're black, douche bag."

Token got to his feet.

"Cartman!" Wendy exclaimed, and thumped him around the head with her copy of the play. "Everyone knows you're an intolerant asshole, you don't have to keep reminding people!"

"What? All I'm saying is it's better if we keep true to the play, ho."

Mrs Delancey rolled her eyes. "Cartman, congratulations. You have earned the first detention of the day."

"What? But I was just -"

"However," she continued. "Black is the only one of you kids with the good manners enough to pull off a gentleman soldier like Othello. I don't much want to have to watch you lot fumble your way through the tragic hero's lines. Black, the role is yours if you want it."

Token stared at her. "That's...not right." The creases in his brow suggested that he didn't think this was all about his acting ability.

"Plus if we don't have a black Othello," Delancey said, her tone a little hesitant, a little bashful, "then we're going to get royally screwed by some black pride group when they come stomping around."

"Mrs Delancey!" Wendy sounded scandalised. "You can't say that! African Americans have every right to protect their culture, and I don't think I appreciate -"

"Wendy," Token interrupted, "it's fine." He offered her a small smile.

"It is not fine!" she protested.

"Yes, it is," Delancey told her, looking at her distastefully. Craig raised his eyebrows. Maybe Delancey wasn't all bad, if she thought Wendy was as much of a preachy bitch as he did.

"Wait, wait, wait." Cartman stood up, holding his hand out in the universal 'stop' motion. "No, this isn't right. I got detention for saying Token should get the role 'cause he's black!"

"Yes," Delancey said, "because you're a little asshole and you _meant_ it to be racist."

Cartman seemed to realise he couldn't argue with the truth, and sat back down. Craig snickered.

"Stupid bitch," he heard him mutter to Wendy.

"Oh, don't talk to me!" she hissed.

"What?" Cartman looked genuinely confused as to what he had done wrong. Craig would have felt bad for him, if he'd given a shit.

Wendy stood up and moved across the room to sit somewhere else. A few seconds later, Token had gravitated towards her. After shooting a dirty look towards Cartman, she smiled, and looked like she was inviting him to sit down.

Craig snuck a look at Cartman, who seemed to steadily be going purple. Wendy had thrown herself into an animated conversation with Token, but he was sure he'd seen her glance back at Cartman after she was sure he'd looked away.

Craig snickered. It was going to be fucking _funny_ if Clyde got shot down because Wendy had a fat fetish or some shit. He turned to tell him that, and then remembered he wasn't there. God fucking damn it, Clyde.

Kenny had heard him laugh, though, and had turned round to catch sight of him. He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement, and then, as soon as Cartman was more or less engrossed in glaring at the back of Wendy's head, he slipped one row back and into the seat next to Craig.

"Hey, dude."

"Morning, McCormick."

Kenny waggled his eyebrows. "Have any more thoughts about my suggestion?"

"What, you mean making Delancey hate us?" Craig asked, dropping his voice.

Kenny nodded. "Though I have a bit of a back-up plan," he said. "You know how we have to try out for a role or she's gonna impale us or something?"

Craig grimaced. "Yeah."

"Well, _wait_ until you see what I've got planned," he chuckled. "It's gonna be fucking epic."

Craig chewed the inside of his cheek. "Cartman's trying for Iago, right?"

"Yeah," Kenny said, and then frowned. "Dude, don't go up against him. He doesn't respond well to competition."

"That's sort of my whole point."

Kenny's expression cleared. "Oh. _Oh_. That's actually...a really good idea."

Craig snorted. "No need to sound so surprised, asshole."

Kenny grinned. The mirth slipped off his face after a moment, though, and he leant in close. "Listen, though, Craig. I've got a little bit of an idea for tonight, if you're interested. Won't take long – like, an hour, max, including travel time, and I _guarantee_ you it will get Delancey so pissed off at us she might even boot us out of class!"

"Then we'd fail Drama," Craig pointed out.

Kenny's expression remained deadly serious. "You clearly don't understand how much I don't want to be in this play, Craig. Do you know what I was doing Monday night?"

"No," Craig said. "Why would I?"

"I'll tell you what I _wasn't_ doing. I _wasn't_ kicking back with a whole plate of Mrs Testaburger's amazing apple pie to myself. Do you know why?"

"Why would I –"

"I was over Cartman's. Running lines. Because he has somehow got it into his head that if he gets really super fucking awesome at Shakespeare, Wendy's gonna swoon into his arms or something."

Craig really didn't care, but he had to ask for Clyde's sake, so he said, "Does he like her?"

Kenny shrugged. "Fuck if I know. I'm pretty sure he wants her to like him, though, for whatever God forsaken reason that fatass does anything. But do you want to know where I was _before_ I was running lines instead of eating pie?"

Craig stared at him dully. "It involves Wendy and 'Othello', doesn't it?"

"Oh _yes_, Craig. Yes it does. Because she did not even wait a day to get her hooks into this idea. She made me read the first three Acts, dude. Without a break. And she kept asking me what I _thought_."

"Stop hanging out with them," Craig suggested. It seemed the simplest thing, after all, if it was pissing Kenny off so much.

He shook his head glumly. "No can do. Cartman would assume it was a plot against him or some shit, and Wendy...well, besides the fact that she's actually kind of cool, I get to eat at hers three nights a week. Seriously, I think her mom used to be a chef or something. She has this golden touch when it comes to food."

"...Those are bad reasons to keep up a friendship."

"Eh, it works for us," Kenny said, pulling a face. "The arguing gets annoying sometimes."

"_Sometimes_?"

"The point is, Craig –" Kenny suddenly returned to his argument – "I cannot get a part in this play. I will run this mission on my own if I must, but backup would be appreciated."

Craig thought about it. On the one hand, hanging out with Kenny brought him perilously close to being lumped in with Wendy and Cartman. On the other hand, Kenny wasn't a douche, and he really fucking hated this play.

"Whatever. Clyde has practice tonight anyway."

"_Sweet._"

Craig gave him a severe look. "This had better be worth it, McCormick."

"I _promise_," Kenny pledged. "Hang on, what auditions are we on?"

Squinting at the board, Craig said, "I think it's Roderigo. Then it's a guy called Lodovico and then it's a chick called Bianca and then there's lunch."

Kenny got to his feet. "Then _I've_ got to go get ready for my audition."

Craig shook his head. "You should just go for Iago like me, moron."

Kenny grinned, the expression on his face suggesting he had a far different plan. Casting a final look at Cartman (who still hadn't realised Kenny had slipped away), he disappeared.

And Craig was bored again.

_Great_.

Fuck football.

* * *

Erica Delancey had seen a lot of things in her life. As an ex-actress, she had had the dubious pleasure of mixing with some of the more eccentric minds the artistic world had to offer. The only thing crazier, she had learnt, than a professional actor, was an amateur actor who could not quite admit how terrible they were.

Erica Delancey accepted that the average high schooler did not give a puddle of shit about Shakespeare. She did not, however, accept that this situation could not be remedied. She had been teaching at Park County High for nine years, and every passing season she was met with more and more obstacles. But she was not a quitter. She was going to get a class, just _one _class, to be genuinely enthusiastic about a performance before she retired. She had to.

And, despite all of the setbacks she had encountered, despite all of the trials and tribulations the assholes she got stuck with seemed determined to place in her path, she had never once doubted her goal until Kenny McCormick burst onto the stage, wearing a long red wig, a very short skirt, and fake breasts.

"Let the devil and his dam haunt you!" McCormick exclaimed, his voice affecting a high, piercing pitch. "What did you mean by the same handkerchief you gave me even now?"

She stared at him in horror, realising precisely what he was doing, as the room burst into laughter. A couple of people whooped.

"I was a fine fool to take it," the bastard child continued, throwing his hand to his forehead and affecting misery. "I must take out the whole work? Egads!"

_Egads? _Erica thought that she felt something die inside her.

"McCormick!" she bellowed, hurrying towards the stage. "What the _hell_ do you think you're playing at?"

"Mrs Delancey!" The kid looked scandalised. "I'm trying to _audition_. Interrupting me is ruining it!" He cleared his throat, and pulled a tissue out from between his enormous fake bosoms. "This is some minx's token," he asserted, waving it obnoxiously in her face.

She snatched the tissue from him. "GET OUT!"

McCormick went, applause and laughter following him as he left. He stopped at the door, turned, and blew a single kiss towards her.

"_OUT!_"

Some days, things happened to make you question things you were sure of right down at the core of your being. The rest of the time, Kenny McCormick was off sick.

* * *

It was somewhere around the time the fourth rock came sailing through her window, followed by a confused looking frog, that Wendy decided that Cartman's respect for personal boundaries was about as well developed as his social tolerance.

"_What_?" She gave up, and leaned out of her bedroom window to talk to him.

He scowled at her from underneath his hood. "Let me in."

"No."

Cartman kicked at the soil. "Aw, come on, hippie, I'm trying to apologise."

Wendy put her hand to her head. "You don't even know what you did wrong, do you?"

"Yes," he said, confidently. "I pointed out that Token was black.

"You know that's not it, Cartman."

His expression grew sullen. "Is it because I followed him around all lunch time saying Othello's lines whenever he opened his mouth?"

"Sort of. Keep trying." She rested her cheek in her hand and looked down at him. He was clearly trying, but she still wasn't impressed.

"Is it because I poured chocolate pudding over Stan and said maybe now he'd have a better chance of getting in the play?"

"You're getting there."

Cartman started to look uncomfortable. "It's not because you think I put Viagra in Stan's water bottle, is it?"

Wendy stared at him, not quite sure she had heard right. "You did _what_?"

"Hey, I _didn't_ do that!" he protested quickly. "I said, is it because you _think_ I did."

That didn't do much to assuage her suspicions. "Was that why Stan messed up his audition?"

"How would I know?" Cartman said innocently, fooling no one. Then, he added imploringly, "come on, Wends, tell me what I've done so I can say sorry."

She sighed, exasperated. "It's _all_ of it, Cartman."

"Then I'm sorry for all of it!"

She looked down at him. She knew damn well he wasn't sorry at all – he just didn't like it when she was pissed off at him, because Kenny could usually be scared into taking her side and that left him as the uncomfortable third wheel. "You're completely missing the point," she told him.

His shoulders slumped. "Fine," he said, sounding for all the world like a kicked puppy. "Guess I'll just go hang on my own, since Kenny's not around, so..." He turned, and started to slouch away.

Wendy was about ninety-nine percent sure he was completely talking out of his ass. But she was bored of mooching around her room running lines on her own, so she called out, "Wait!"

Cartman turned around.

She sighed. "Come on. Go round to the front door."

Fifteen minutes later found Cartman trying to nudge her off her own bed with his thigh. He'd immediately claimed the entirety of her mattress when he'd reached her room and sprawled himself out over it, and every time she tried to sit down next to him he seemed determined to prise her off it.

"Oh, grow up, Cartman," she said, slapping his leg.

"You're the one that needs to grow up, hippie," he snorted. "After the bitch fit you threw after Drama today."

Wendy glowered at him. "It was not a _bitch fit. _Mrs Delancey was clearly just being spiteful because I called her out over the Token thing, and Kenny had pissed her off –"

"You told her she was a repressive, anti-feminist tyrant who resented you because you still had your looks and your life ahead of you."

Wendy flushed. "Well that was because –"

She broke off, remembering exactly _why_ she had raised her voice at Mrs Delancey.

Cartman propped himself up on his elbows. "What?"

She waved her hand dismissively. "Well, you know, she wasn't keen on me playing Emilia, even though I _nailed_ the audition. She said I was a hypocrite."

He frowned. "Why?"

She pulled a face. "_Well_. She might have maybe said that I had a considerable amount of 'courage' –" she emphasised the word sarcastically – "calling myself a feminist when I saw fit to hand out with...well, the most chauvinistic seventeen year old she had met since the sixties." Wendy coloured again as she finished her sentence.

Cartman stared at her blankly for a moment. "Seriously? You shouted down a teacher because you were _defending me_?"

"No!" Wendy's cheeks did not seem inclined to cool down any time soon. "Because she insulted _me_. As if who I associate with determines my beliefs!" She drew a breath, and then continued. "But she didn't seem to mind so much – she said she'd consider me for Emilia if I promised to try out for Desdemona tomorrow."

Wendy didn't need to turn to look at him to know Cartman's eyebrows had shot up. "The dumb bitch who's only wish is to suck her husband's big black cock?"

She sighed. "I think she's trying to punish me, in her own strange way."

Cartman grinned, and smacked her arm with his copy of the text. "Bitch, it's better than a detention."

"I wouldn't know," Wendy said dryly. "So I'll defer to you, since you're the expert."

He ignored her. "Come on," he said. "Let's run some damn lines."

* * *

"Got any sixes?" Kenny drawled, looking at Craig over his hand of cards.

"Kenny, for fuck's sake, we're playing poker."

"Yeah, I know. That's why I really fucking need to know if you have any sixes."

"That isn't how poker works. Call or fold, jackass."

Kenny frowned at his cards. He was sitting on a two-pair of Aces and Nines. "Call."

A minute later, he proudly splayed his cards face up on Craig's dad's poker table. "Now I say, read 'em and weep, right?" he asked.

"Nope," Craig said, and laid down a straight.

"Two, three, four, five...oh goddamit, Craig, I asked if you had any sixes."

Craig simply smirked.

"Is it ten o'clock yet?" Kenny asked, trying to inject his voice with the right amount of moodiness to imply he had just lost a hand of poker.

"It's half past, actually," Craig said blithely.

"What? Craig, you were supposed to tell me." He stuck out his bottom lip in a grotesque caricature of a pout.

Craig shrugged. "I was wiping the floor with you. I couldn't stop until it was clean."

"You're such an asshole, Craig."

"At least all my friends aren't obsessed with Shakespeare."

"All your _friend_, you mean," Kenny said, giving him a sidelong glance.

Craig picked up the cards and began to shuffle them. "I'm going to win any argument about friends, you know," he told Kenny. "With two words."

"Cartman's not _that_ bad," Kenny protested weakly.

Craig fixed him with a look.

"He helped me find shit for my Bianca costume," he added.

At the memory of Kenny flouncing out of the Drama room earlier that day, fake red hair whipping out behind him, Craig suppressed a grin. "What the fuck made you want do that to yourself?"

"Because it was fucking hilarious."

"Fucking _faggoty_ if you ask me," Craig snorted.

"I dunno," Kenny said, "Clyde looked pretty fucking into that whole Cassio speech earlier. _That's_ faggoty."

Craig pulled a face. "He just wants to get it on with Wendy."

Kenny's expression darkened. "He _what_?"

"He's not _going_ to," Craig said, looking at Kenny as if he was mad for even thinking it. "In case you haven't noticed, Clyde gets boring as shit as soon as something with tits gets within three feet of him."

"He's probably going to get the part, though," Kenny decided. "Seeing as how Stan fucked up so badly."

"I think Cartman put something in his water."

"He did. He stole some of the Viagra I stole from Johnson and figured I didn't notice."

Craig stared at him. "There are so many questions raised by that, that I really do not know where to begin."

Kenny looked up at him at grinned. "Johnson ripped on me for being poor last time in Gym. So I took his little blue pills. Cartman either thinks Stan is going to try it on with Wendy or that he's going to outdo him if they're both in the play, or he just likes fucking with nice guys. And he didn't think I'd notice he'd taken them because he's stupid."

Craig simply shook his head.

"Can we get _going_?" Kenny implored. He was starting to get pretty twitchy.

Craig got to his feet and gave Kenny an odd look. "Nervous?"

Kenny grinned. "Moi? No, no. I can assure you, young Master Tucker. _This_ is anticipation."

"Whatever. Let's get this over with."

Breaking into the Park County High School was one of those rare things that was almost as easily done as it was said. When they were thirteen, Cartman had managed to work out exactly which high schoolers were doing pot and keeping it in their lockers. For about six months, they had crept in every night to clean out another sucker's locker. Kenny had wanted to smoke the stuff but Cartman had insisted they sell it on.

"We can always buy more of this shit with our takings," Cartman had told him, seeming to overlook entirely the fact that they had _free_ drugs available to them.

The operation had shut down when Cartman worked out that the reason their stash kept diminishing was because Kenny was taking it. He hadn't talked to him for a while after that, until he suddenly palled up to him again when he started hanging out with Wendy.

"You'd really think they'd have fixed this thing by now," Kenny said conversationally, pushing the broken latch of the window aside and opening it. "After you."

Craig climbed through the window, a little awkwardly, and Kenny followed him.

"Her office?"

"You know it."

When they reached the cafeteria, Kenny set down his bag. "Right," he said. There should be a security camera on us now. Want to go with blue or pink?"

"Pink," Craig decided. "It's like insult to inury."

Unzipping his bag, Kenny pulled out a pot of pink paint, and a thick brush. "Off you go, then."

Craig stared at him. "No. You do it."

"Fuck you, Craig, I'm management."

"Fuck you, Kenny, I'm bigger than you."

Kenny looked him up and down and glowered. "I hate being skinny."

"We'll do a word each," Craig said, fairly. Kenny set to work.

It ended up only taking then about thirty minutes or so. By the time they were done, the back wall of Delancey's office was well and truly defaced. They had even added a few flowers and shit in blue for some variety.

"Well," Kenny said, wiping a tiny trickle of sweat off his forehead. "It's not Shakespeare, but I think it gets out point across."

He noticed that Craig couldn't help but grin. "Seriously, though," he said. "I'm pretty sure we could have come up with a limerick."

_There was a mad lady Delancey  
Over Shakespeare she got antsy-pantsy  
She ripped off her drawers  
Said "Shakey, I'm yours!"  
Shame he is dead and a pansy_


	4. The Green Eyed Monster

Disclaimer: Still don't own South Park, unsurprisingly, though I am fast becoming infatuated with Trey Parker. Lyrics lines: Fall Out Boy, 'w.a.m.s'

Note: OK, so this one is REALLY Candy heavy. Seriously, I had to shoehorn the Kenny and Craig bits in here and they're more or less just plot spinners. But NEVER FEAR because I'm most of the way through writing the next chapter now and I actually really like it. It's got massive amounts of Clyde in, and heavy doses of Craig and Kenny too. There's barely any Cartman at all. It's awesome.

Anyway this chapter has been a bit delayed because I've been out of my head unhappy the past few days. One of my friends is going through a really rough time, and light-hearted romance has been the furthest thing from my mind. But I'm getting back into the swing now, and the story's about to pick up.

x

**Chapter Four**  
**The Green Eyed Monster**

_hurry, hurry  
you've got my head in such a flurry, flurry  
__so what, so what  
makes you so special? _

* * *

Wendy gaped at the crowd in front of her. "I think every girl in class is auditioning for this role," she said, slack-jawed.

"Looks like," Cartman said.

"I think you're the only guy here."

"Nah." He pointed to a figure leaning against the wall next to the stage, and scowled. "Craig. He's gotta be going for Iago. Well, he's not going to get it."

Wendy patted his arm, still staring at the ridiculous number of girls who had turned up to try out for Desdemona. "You'll be fine. Do you think it's because Token is Othello?"

"Huh?" Cartman looked as if he had been jolted out of his thoughts – thoughts, Wendbialyy knew, which probably had less to do with how he could get the role of Iago and more to do with how he could _stop_ Craig from getting it. "Why would that matter?"

"Because everyone thinks Token is hot."

Cartman stared at her blankly. "I don't."

Wendy resisted the urge to hit her head against the wall. "All the _girls_, dumbass. Token's rich and really good looking and a total gentleman. He's a musician and an athlete and his grades are pretty high –"

"Jesus, Wendy," Cartman said sourly. "Why don't you just marry him?"

She stopped. Cartman looked distinctly disgruntled, and he was staring at the crowd of girls with a new dislike. "I mean," she said, "he's generally considered a good catch. Most girls here are probably just dying to play the lead role opposite him. _I'm_ not," she added.

Cartman was watching Red and Annie running lines together. "He's a dick to me," he said at length.

"Everyone's a dick to you," Wendy reminded. "Because you're a dick to everyone."

"That's so not true, Wendy."

She smiled wanly up at him. "You just keep on believing that."

The door opened behind them, and they stepped quickly aside. Mr Johnson, a large, red faced man who had been hired exclusively because he looked frightening, stormed into the room.

"_Tucker_!" he hollered. Across the room, Craig leapt to his feet. "_Get your skinny ass out here now!_"

"What did I do?" Craig called back.

"You know damn well what you've done, you little piece of donkey crap! You and that McCormick kid are in for so much detention time my kids are gonna be retired by the time you're out. Front and centre, Tucker, principal's office!"

Craig flipped him the bird, but slouched towards the door. "What a shame," he said, as he approached the door. "I guess I won't be able to try out for the play after all." Wendy had probably imagined it, but she thought she saw him smirk.

After he had gone, the silence that had descended over the room was torn apart. Immediately, gossip started over what Craig had done. Wendy had something else on her mind though.

"Did he say –"

"McCormick, yeah." Cartman was grinning like he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world. "God, whatever he's done, Kenny is going to be in so much shit."

"You don't have to sound so gleeful!"

Cartman stared at her. "It's like you don't know me at _all_."

Wendy sighed, and considered making the 'but he's your best friend' argument. It wouldn't work, though, and she knew that too well to even really waste the breath on trying. "Let's sit down."

They dragged a couple of empty chairs towards the back of the room. Mrs Delancey hadn't turned up yet, and neither had any other boys. At this rate, she doubted Cartman was even going to have to _audition_ for his role. It bothered her, just like it had bothered her how Token had just been _handed_ the role of Othello (even though, to be fair to him, he hadn't exactly asked for it). But, she thought, it probably bothered her a lot less than it would if she hadn't already seen Cartman practicing after school the day before. He was actually _good._

_Hardly surprising, _she thought with a bitter smile. _He's one term of military service away from _being_ Iago, motiveless malignancy and all._

"What are you smirking about?" Cartman asked suspiciously.

She looked up at him. "How well suited you are to for this role," she grinned.

Cartman smiled, then – a genuine smile that took Wendy quite by surprise. If she were a little more poetically inclined, she thought, she'd make some comment on how it lit up his whole face and made him look almost handsome.

It was a good thing she wasn't more poetically inclined, really. Having thoughts like that about Eric Cartman was absurd.

"Girls!" Mrs Delancey had appeared on the stage. "And Eric," she added.

Quiet fell.

"We're pretty much ready to start. I'm going to sit in front of the stage and call your names. Come up when it's your turn, do your bit, then you can go. The most important thing to remember is to just do your best." Her eyes found Wendy. "_Everyone."_

Wendy scowled. "She's only making me try out for Desdemona to spite me," she whispered angrily to Cartman. "Desdemona's a complete _wimp_. She lets Othello walk all over her, she doesn't even _get_ what he's ranting about – ugh, she's so _stupid_!"

"Then how come so many girls wanna be her?"

Wendy's expression darkened. "Like I said, it's probably just 'cause of _Token_. Seriously, the things some girls will do to hang out with a guy – Othello _kills_ Desdemona, for Christ's sake! How exactly is romance supposed to blossom when you're practicing how he can convincingly pretend to smother you?" She looked to Cartman for agreement, and saw that he was looking amused. "What?"

"You," he said, smirking. "Chewing out this lot for trying out for a role to get close to a guy, when you're doing the exact same thing."

Wendy rolled her eyes. "I told you I don't _like_ – "

"Not Token," he interrupted, his smirk widening. "_Me._"

She stared at him in disbelief. "No," she assured him. "I'm really not."

"Sure," Cartman said. "Leading Lady Wendy is just trying out for the maid because of her politics."

Wendy glared at him. He still had the maddening smirk fixed firmly in place. "I _am_. Emilia is a strong-willed, forth-right, powerful –"

"I read to the end, Wendy, Iago totally fucks her up. And what that's one line she has, where all she wants to do is _please his fantasies_?"

Wendy could feel the colour in her cheeks rising, and inwardly cursed. _She _knew it was because she was getting frustrated with him, but Cartman would inevitably –

"Ha, you're blushing."

Like fucking _clockwork._ And still smirking.

"God damn I hate you, Cartman."

He shrugged. "Hey, if you want a piece of me, all you gotta do is say. I'm all about sharing my hot body with the less fortunate."

Wendy glowered at him. "Maybe we should _feed_ you to them, then."

Cartman opened his mouth to reply (probably, she thought, with something to do with denying he was fat enough to feed to poor people), but before he could get any words out, Mrs Delancey had called out, "Eric? Just come up and do your bit really quick. I can't have _both_ lead roles go out without any auditions at all."

Giving Wendy one last, supercilious look, Cartman headed towards the stage.

To Wendy's great surprise, he had got even better that she'd seen the day before. Cartman delivered the lines with confidence, putting emphasis in all the right places. He had chosen to perform Iago's first soliloquy, and he dropped perfectly from 'supportive friend' to 'manipulative bastard'. It didn't surprise Wendy that he'd have that down so well, after the way she'd seen him behave over the years. But his careful, precise delivery and ease with which he seemed to be moving about the size, despite his size, had everyone in the room staring.

"Jesus," Wendy heard Red whisper. "Cartman can _act_."

"...hell and night," Cartman finished, his voice heavy with the promise of terror and dread, "must bring this monstrous birth into the world's light."

Wendy very nearly applauded.

"Very nice, Eric. Miss Clementine had a feeling you'd be good for Iago." Mrs Delancey nodded to let him know he could go.

Instead of leaving, he headed back to his seat. "I'll hang round 'til you're done if you like," he offered.

"Sure," Wendy said, still a little awed by his performance.

He smiled, and Wendy was surprised to see that though it was confident, it lacked his usual smugness. "Did you like it?" he asked, lowering his voice as Delancey called Rebecca up to the stage. He sounded as if he was only just managing to control his excitement – like a kid who knew he'd just done a good job with something, and was waiting for their mom to congratulate them. She almost smiled.

"It was..." Wendy shook her head. "Well, I don't know what to say. It was pretty brilliant, Eric."

Cartman cocked an eyebrow. "Christ. Good enough for you to call me Eric? Maybe I should take this shit up as a job."

Wendy giggled quietly. "Hardly world domination."

"You kidding?" Cartman grinned. "Regan, Schwarzenegger – actors in government is the wave of the future."

She hated to admit it, but he sort of had a point. Cartman could be phenomenally (and annoyingly) charismatic; she didn't think he'd have any trouble getting any public position he wanted.

...Which was a fucking scary thought.

Her expression must have changed, because he frowned. "Don't worry, hippie," he said, in what she assumed was meant to be a reassuring tone. "When I become this world's new God, I will spare you when I wipe out the rest of your dirty, pot-smoking kind."

Wendy blinked. "That's a disturbingly nice thing for you to say, Cartman."

He smiled again, and like before, it was completely devoid of superiority. "I'll even give you a forest or something," he teased.

Wendy could feel herself getting suckered in. Cartman had his charm on full blast, and seemed to be riding on a rush from his performance. "A whole forest, huh?" she shot back.

"Yeah. And you could frolic and shit in our massive mansion-gardens."

Wendy's eyebrows shot up. "'Our'?" she repeated.

"Yeah. We'd be married, of course." Cartman said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world – as if the only natural progression of events was for her to go from congratulating him on his audition to ruling the world at his side. She bit back a laugh. Cartman's pleasant expression didn't change. "You'd get used to it. I'd wind up getting buff as hell, see, and you wouldn't be able to keep your hands off me."

"Is that right?" Wendy asked sceptically, thoroughly amused. This was nice. This was...weird. This was...

Oh, Jesus Christ on high, this was _flirting_.

"It is right," Cartman said confidently. Then, his smile turned wicked. "And I, being the awesome and famous actor I would obviously be, would give you _private performances_." He waggled his eyebrows, and Wendy bit down on her lip hard.

_Stop this_, she told herself, _stop it. You're encouraging him. He's never going to learn if you –_

"What if I preferred _public_ performances?" Wendy couldn't stop herself from asking, and holy mother of God, when had her voice gone that husky? _Stop it, Wendy, stop it, the only way this can end is with you marrying him, bearing his children and then being sent to jail for the rest of your life when you snap and wind up murdering him _and_ his demon spawn. _

Cartman's expression flickered with shock, but then he leant in close. "I'm sure we could arrange that," he murmured, looking dead into her eyes.

"Arrange?" _You're making things worse. Stop it. Stop it right now, Wendy, you are digging yourself into a pit which is filled with Ebola and wolves. _"I've always been more of a fan of spontaneity."

"Oh really?"

It might have been her imagination, but she was sure Cartman had just inched forward. Wendy was pretty sure she actually felt her heart speed up then, and that _scared_ her, because it was Cartman, and she wasn't supposed to _respond_ to Cartman, and she wasn't supposed to _enjoy_ –

Oh, God, she had to get her obsession with Shakespeare sorted.

"Wendy Testaburger, please," Mrs Delancey called.

Wendy got to her feet very quickly, and headed for the stage. Her head was reeling. What was she thinking? She had just...she had just _flirted with Cartman_.

_Alright, focus_, she told herself. _Just do this speech and you can get out of here. You don't even want this role anyway. Just say the words and go run your head under cold water._

"Alas, Iago," she began, and despite herself, she couldn't keep herself from glancing at Cartman. He was watching her. "What shall I do to win my lord again?"

But it was strange, though. For a moment there, she had almost been sure he had been about to kiss her.

* * *

"You're in so much fuckin' trouble," Johnson gloated, as Craig trailed after him towards the principals' office. He was the only teacher than actually swore around students, and at first, they'd all thought that made him pretty cool. Then, they had realised that Mr Johnson was an asshole who lived to see pain and misery inflicted on his students. He taught gym.

"Delancey is fucking steamed at you kids," Johnson continued. "She gets bat shit crazy over geek shit like this, and you've gone and pissed her off over it. She'd been _extra_ grouchy lately, and _I _reckon she's on the rag. So you're screwed." He dropped his voice conspiratorially when he said that, and it occurred to Craig that this was what Cartman would be like if he ever became a teacher.

They reached the office. Grinning sickly, Johnson pushed open the door, and ushered him inside. To Craig's relief, the dickhead didn't follow him in.

Principle Kendall was sitting behind the desk, with Mrs Delancey standing on his left side, and Miss Clementine standing on his right. He had his fingers steepled, and looked up when Craig entered the room.

"Ah," he said, genially. "Craig. You're here. We need to make this quick, since Mrs Delancey has got to get back to auditions."

"Yeah," Craig said, looking sidelong at Kenny. "I was really looking forward to trying out, sir. What seems to be the problem?"

He saw Kenny bite his lip and suppress a snicker, and he had to fight back a grin himself. Delancey looked _livid_, and Clementine's face was all drawn up like she'd been sucking on a lemon – even more than usual.

_This is working perfectly,_ he thought._ Kenny was so right. Piss someone off enough and they won't want you to be anywhere near them._

"Miss Clementine reported your little prank to me," Kendall said. "And I must say, I am severely disappointed. Not that I haven't come to expect this sort of behaviour from some of the students in this school, but I must say, it was disheartening to see something so personally directed at a member of my staff." He frowned over the top of his glasses. "I would like you to apologise to Mrs Delancey."

Both Kenny and Craig mumbled their 'sorry's. Neither sounded particularly sincere, but the look in Delancey's eyes said that she wasn't much interested in apologies, more in vengeance.

"And of course, there is the matter of punishment. To be honest with you, boys, you're in for a lot of detention time for this."

_Worth it_, Craig thought. He'd take three months of detention over being forced into listening to hour after hour of the idiots in his year stammering out four hundred year old speeches any day.

"Excuse me, Mr Kendall." Miss Clementine spoke for the first time. "But I have a better idea. Mrs Delancey and I were speaking earlier, and frankly, we feel it would be best to tailor the punishment to fit the crime."

Mrs Delancey smiled mirthlessly. "Yes. Since you two seem to have such an unhealthy dislike of Shakespeare, we feel it would be for the best to have you meet it head on."

Kenny and Craig exchanged stricken glances.

_No_,Craig thought. _No, no, no, no, no, no, no –_

"You two," Delancey said, eyes glinting, "are going to be the _stars_ of my play."

* * *

02/10/2010 16:18  
Fatass  
DUDE I THINK I HAVE A SHOT WITH HER

02/10/2010 16:18  
Kenny Poor  
if not in tomoz, have killed self & will see u Monday

02/10/2010 16:19  
Kenny Poor  
wait what?

02/10/2010 16:21  
Fatass  
KENNY YOU ARE KILLING MY BUZZ HERE, I DON'T CARE WHAT SORT OF SHIT YOU AND CRAIG GOT INTO, BE HAPPY FOR ME YOU ASS

02/10/2010 16:24  
Kenny Poor  
your caps are hurting my eyes. whats happened?

02/10/2010  
Fatass  
Oh nothing, just that Wendy CREAMED HERSELF over me in those faggy auditions. I am the fucking MAN

02/10/2010  
Kenny Poor  
what does her O face look like

02/10/2010  
Fatass  
Watch it you shit. That's my woman you're talking about.

02/10/2010  
Kenny Poor  
lol youll get with wendy the day i fuck craig tucker

02/10/2010  
Fatass  
Tell Craig to break out the lube then. She'll be mine by Christmas.

* * *

Craig was sat on the wall outside the gym, waiting for his dad to turn up. Leaning against the wall, tactfully avoiding his eye, was Kenny.

"Hey Craig," Craig said, monotone and still staring off blankly. "I have an idea that will keep up out of the play."

"Craig, c'mon –" Kenny started, but Craig ignored him.

"It won't take long. Only an hour or so."

"Craig, it was a _good plan_. It nearly worked. If Clementine hadn't –"

"I guarantee you it will get Delancey so pissed off at us," Craig continued. "She might even boot us out of class."

Kenny sighed. "You're an asshole, Craig."

After a pause, Craig said, "it takes one to know one. Asshole."

"I deserved that."

"Yes. Yes you did. If it wasn't for your plan, I would be happy. I would have tried out for Iago and Cartman would have tried to kill me. And then I would have helped people put their costumes on and it would have been boring but it would be better than this. I hate you, Kenny."

"It's worse for me," Kenny reminded him glumly.

Craig nodded. "I know. That's why I'm making you hang out with me until this is over. Because every time I feel bad about my gay role in this play, I am going to turn and look at you, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh."

Kenny sighed heavily. "I should leave the schemes to Cartman." He shook his head. "Seriously, it's like they _knew_ it was all my idea or something."

"You brought it on yourself," Craig told him.

"I know." Kenny sounded so miserable, that for a moment, Craig almost softened.

And then he remembered that it was Kenny's own fucking fault he had something to be depressed about.

_Seriously, Clyde_, he thought, bitterly. _Shit like this happens every time you have a game. I know you do it to spite me. I wish you would stop._

To his complete non-surprise, Clyde did not telepathically reply.

* * *

Friday morning came around much the same way every morning did. There was, however, a notable sense of excitement in the air when Cartman got to school. He, however, wasn't buying into this shit. It was just a school play.

But the look of astonishment-bordering-on-reverence he'd seen on Wendy's face when he'd looked out at her during his audition was still fresh in his mind. He'd never seen that kind of expression on _anyone_, and to see it on Wendy, directed at him –

Well, all he was saying was maybe Shakespeare wasn't _that_ bad.

She was standing at her locker. Her hair was swept up into a loose bun, and she was wearing the pendant he and Kenny had got her for her sixteenth birthday.

"Cast list will be put up soon," was the first thing Wendy said when she saw him. She looked nervous.

He rolled his eyes. "Chill the fuck out, hippie. You're a shoe-in for the leading lady."

She uttered an exasperated sigh. "I don't want to be the leading lady, I want to be _Emilia_!"

He grinned and dropped an arm around her shoulders. Wendy was stupidly easy to bait sometimes. "So you just want to be _my_ leading lady?" he said, lowering his voice an octave and tilting his face down to hers.

She glared up at him, and pushed his arm away. "For God's sake, Cartman. Don't do that. People will think –"

"People _already_ think, Wendy." At her look of surprise, he snorted. "Come on. We hang out _all_ the time, Kenny flips out when any guy talks to you _except_ me..." He put his arm back on her shoulders. "Let's give the proles something to talk about."

Her glare did not falter. "_I'm_ going down to the Drama room to wait for Mrs Delancey." She stepped away from him, tossed her hair over her shoulder, and headed down the hallway.

Cartman followed her, a stupid grin plastered over his face, because _that_ time, she hadn't pushed his arm away.

A lot of people were already gathered around the door to the Drama room, milling about in an unsuccessful attempt to look disinterested. To Cartman's great surprise, Kenny was there, too.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked, when they reached his side.

Kenny looked pale. "I'm about to have to defend my honour quite severely," he muttered, not meeting their eyes.

Wendy frowned. "What did you get in trouble for yesterday? You and Craig?"

Kenny put his head in his hands.

"Kenny..."

Just then, the door opened. Mrs Delancey appeared briefly, took one long at the people gathered, rolled her eyes, and slapped a single sheet of paper onto the door. Then, she was gone.

"Ugh, I can't look," Kenny groaned.

Cartman narrowed his eyes. He didn't need to look at the casting sheet – he _knew_ he was going to be Iago. Even if he hadn't been the only one to audition, he was still sure he'd have kicked the ass of any dumb fuck stupid enough to go up against him. But _Kenny_...now, this was interesting. And, potentially, the source of jokes at his poor-ass friend's expense.

He pushed his way forward, amid various sighs of disappointment or cries of success, and scanned the list. He saw his own name first (Iago, obviously), and then smiled when he saw that Stan _hadn't_ gotten Cassio. Then, he saw Kenny's name.

"_Bianca! You actually fucking got Bianca, McCormick!_"

The gathered crowd burst into laughter. Kenny put his face further into his hands. Cartman couldn't stop grinning. This play was going to be fucking excellent.

Then, he heard Wendy groan beside him.

"Desdemona," she said, and the disappointment was evident in her voice.

Cartman's grin slipped a bit. For all his joking about it, he _had_ actually wanted Wendy to get Emilia. He'd read the fucking play, he knew she was right – the role suited her. Besides, having her pretend to be his wife for a while – well, shit, it wasn't the real thing, but he was willing to take what he could get. Instead, she was going to be hanging out with _Token._

The thought of them practicing, alone, in his _mansion_ with Token being such a fucking _gentleman, _crossed his mind. He thought of the slap they'd have to fake, and thought that if that black asshole _touched_ her, he was going to break his stupid spine.

Then he thought of the smothering scene, and Token kneeling over Wendy, who was sprawled out on his bed, Token leaning down, _'I kissed thee ere I killed thee...', _Token kissing her –

He scowled. God fucking damn it. And it was all shaping up so nicely.

Well, then. He was just going to have to come up with a plan.

* * *

_OTHELLO  
CAST LIST_

_Othello – Token Black  
Desdemona – Wendy Testaburger  
Brabantio – Kyle Broflovski  
Iago – Eric Cartman  
Emilia – Bebe Stevens  
Cassio – Clyde Donovan  
Bianca – Kenny McCormick  
Roderigo – Craig Tucker  
The Duke – Jimmy Valmer  
Gratiano – Heidi Turner  
Lodovico – Kevin Stoley  
_

_HAVE A NICE DAY_


	5. All The World's A Stage

Disclaimer: Still don't own South Park. Lyric lines: Grenade Jumper, by Fall Out Boy. Quite a few 'Othello' quotes here, and they still belong to Shakespeare, and Left 4 Dead belongs to Valve.

Note: Okay, this one's a LONG one. Primarily because every Cartman scene I write seems to run on twice its length even though I am cripplingly aware that my grasp of his character is tenuous at best. However, this one was a lot of fun, mainly for Clyde. He's going to start cropping up more and more in the coming chapters, so yay! Also, a little Butters cameo here, and I'm really not sure how that turned out. Oh, and you'll be pleased to know that even though this chapter is VERY Othello-heavy, we'll be straying away from the Drama room for a while after this. Yay! Anyway, I've talked enough, so please enjoy!

x

**Chapter Five  
All the World's a Stage**

_my heart ticks in beat  
with these kids that i grew up with  
living life like it's going out of style_

* * *

"Sit back down, Kenny."

Kenny froze, looking guiltily at the back of Craig's head. "I was just stretching my legs."

"No you weren't," Craig said matter-of-factly. "You were going to try to sneak out. Sit back down."

Kenny sat down miserably. "But you've been so _quiet_."

"I've had homework. Of course I'm quiet."

"Then why do I have to be here?" Kenny complained.

"We've been through this. Because you got me into this stupid ass play and I am going to keep you around to remind me at least I'm not playing a prostitute." Craig hacked a sentence onto his keyboard violently.

Kenny coughed nervously. "It's gonna break if you do that."

"I don't care."

Kenny groaned and leant back onto the floor. He'd been sat here, on the floor of Craig's bedroom, for _three hours_. He should have known better than to come over, really, but at lunchtime when the rest of his Saturday looked bleak and empty, it had seemed like a good idea. Much better than hanging out with Wendy, anyway, and having her force him to run through Bianca's fucking lines over and over again.

Her reaction to the cast list hadn't been a good one. Her sullenness over not being picked for Emilia had lasted until lunchtime, when Bebe had sat down opposite her and started complaining that she _had_ been cast as, as she'd described her, 'the dried up hag-bitch'. Wendy'd perked up when she'd realised someone else was as pissed off as she was, which had been a good thing for the whole five minutes it took her to latch onto something new: Kenny.

"I can't _believe_ she cast you," Wendy had told him. "Even as a punishment!"

"I know, it's pretty fucked up," Kenny had agreed, glad she sympathised.

"Annie's audition was much better," she'd said then, and Kenny had glowered at her. Then she'd added those fatal words, "I'll help you put some extra practice in."

And thus, the Avoiding Wendy game had begun.

He'd managed to get away from her Friday night by claiming he had to work on his essay for History. The only problem then was that he actually had to work on it, because the excuse would only be good once. That was the only reason, really, he was crashed out on Craig's floor at that moment: with no homework, and no desire to watch Cartman stuff himself with food Kenny wasn't allowed to touch, hanging out with the class asshole seemed like the best bet.

And, yeah, maybe it was nice to hang around someone who felt his pain about being drafted into the play. Even if Craig used Kenny's situation as an excuse for constant mockery.

"Seriously, it's not a long essay," Kenny said, putting his hands over his eyes. "And it's not _important_ anyway."

"I know," Craig replied.

"Then how come you're still working on it?"

He shrugged. "I'm not. I finished an hour ago."

Kenny sat up, staring at him. "What?"

Craig didn't turn around. "I've been IM'ing Clyde."

"And you just made me _sit_ here? You asshole."

Still not turning around, Craig flipped him off.

"Seriously, Craig. Not cool." He stood up. "I'm out."

"Fine. Don't stay for dinner," Craig said nonchalantly.

Kenny sighed. God damn, everyone knew how to play the poor guy. _Damn his assholey genius,_ he thought. "Well, can we at least go on your Xbox or something?"

"Sure," Craig said, shutting his laptop. "You can watch me play Assassin's Creed."

"...why are you such a dick?"

Craig turned around at last and stared at him. "Because I'm Roderigo," he answered simply.

"I'm _Bianca!_" Kenny argued, as Craig headed for the Xbox. "Can't we just do something _two player_?"

Craig looked at him expressionlessly for a moment, before saying, "Yeah. Go on then."

Kenny almost asked, "Really?" but decided not to press his luck. Snatching up a controller before Craig could stop him, he hopped onto the bottom of the bed. "What're we going to play?"

Craig was kneeling next to a stack of green boxes. "Halo?" he suggested, before grimacing. "Naw, the internet's shitty today. Online'll be gay."

"You got Left 4 Dead?"

Craig held up two boxes. "And _2_." He opened one of the boxes. "You cool with that?"

"S'long as I'm Zoe."

"Nope. Playing the second one. You can be Ellis." Kenny though he saw Craig grin. "You two are so alike."

"Hey, fuck you, Craig, I wanna play the hot sixteen year old."

"Well _I_ wanna hit zombies in the face with a frying pan, and it's _my_ Xbox," Craig reminded him.

He did have a point. It turned out, however, that neither one of them was particularly good at the game.

"Jeez," Kenny sighed, "the fucking Tank's downed me again."

"Get Coach to heal you when you're up," Craig said absently. "Oh, _fuck_, me too."

"I suck at this game without Wendy."

Craig gave him a sceptical look. "_Wendy_?"

"Yeah, she kicks ass at this game."

"She's not really the girl gamer type," Craig said dubiously. "She's more like, 'the excessive violence and gratuitous sexuality in video games is the leading cause of corruption in our nation's youth' type."

"It is the _only_ game she can play," Kenny conceded. He chuckled. "I remember the first time Cartman got her to play it and she freaked the fuck out when the first Hunter pinned her."

Craig snickered, starting the campaign again. "I bet she's an achievement whore, too."

Kenny pulled a face. "Four fucking hours. That's how long it took us to rescue Gnome fucking Chompsky. She's the only one of us that actually _knows_ the maps, though."

"Yeah, that would be pretty God damn useful right now," Craig said. "This fucking carnival is leading me in circles. Oh, crap, _horde_."

Somewhere in the middle of the bout of button mashing that followed, Kenny glanced over at Craig. The other boy was frowning, his tongue between his teeth, when the corner of his mouth suddenly curved upwards. A couple of seconds later, chainsaw sounds were being emitted from the TV set.

"Kenny, get your ass over here so I can heal you," he said, jumping his character over the pile of zombie bodies.

"Shit, thanks. I didn't realise how low my health had got."

Craig shrugged. "You're not help dead."

Kenny grinned.

* * *

The first week of rehearsals was chaos.

Monday's Drama lesson had begun poorly. Wendy had watched, aghast, as Cartman had begun shouting at Token that he didn't sound black enough, and subsequently tried to advise him on how to 'sound more like a Moor'. Token had been drawing his arm back for a second punch as Cartman cradled his nose when Delancey had finally got between them. They'd both launched into immediate and simultaneous explanations, which she'd summarily cut off.

"I really don't care," she said. "Look – you're my Othello, and you're my Iago. I can't _spare _you to detention." She looked extremely dismal at the prospect.

"Mrs Delancey," Token had said, in a remarkably level voice. "You can't seriously let him get away with –"

Delancey held up her hand to stop him again. "Token, look, I get it. I do. But if we had to take time out of day every time this one –" she jerked her thumb at Cartman –"says something crappy we'd really not be doing anything else."

Cartman smiled smugly and opened his mouth to say something. Delancey gave him a look that said very clearly, _Go on. Push me. I DARE YOU._

Cartman kept quiet.

"Desdemona," Delancey said, "you're up. Brabantio and the Duke, can we have you here please?"

Wendy hurried to the stage, with a sneaking suspicion that the tone for the rest of the term had just been set. "Scene three?" she asked, as Kyle and Jimmy came up behind her.

Delancey nodded. "Let's take it from where Desdemona first comes in with Iago. Testaburger, Cartman, come in from the left. Broflovski, Valmer, let's have you standing to the right and Black, let's get you in the center. The Duke to start."

The five of them shuffled to their positions, Wendy taking her position a pace or two behind Cartman. She gave him a quick glare.

"Stop being a bastard to Token," she whispered.

"What?" he shot back. "He _doesn't_ sound black enough. He's got that rich boy accent and Othello's meant to be this badass gritty general, right?"

Wendy sighed. "In case you haven't noticed, genius, the entire cast is _Italian_ and you're not chewing anyone out for not having that accent."

Cartman just shrugged.

"And let's go!" Delancey called, clapping her hands loudly. "Valmer, you're up. 'I think this tale'."

Jimmy moved forward. "I think this tale would – this tale wo-ould – this tale woo – this tale would win my daughter too. Good B – Brabantio..."

The scene ran fairly smoothly. Wendy, having already learnt all her lines for the first Act, confidently delivered her short speech about divided duties. It was Desdemona's first scene in the play, where she had to explain to her father why she'd run away with Othello. She tried to fill her voice with as much meek respect as possible, but it was hard.

God, if she'd been Desdemona, she would have just straight up _told_ her father where to shove it. Kyle captured the frothing rage of Desdemona's father quite nicely, though, right down to his last couplet.

"Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see," Kyle said heavily, levelling a finger at Token. "She has deceived her father, and may thee."

"My life upon her faith!" Token shot back, his chin raised. He struck quite a figure standing there. He was tall, perhaps the tallest of all the boys, even topping Cartman and Kyle by an inch or so. He was lean and muscular with it, too, so where Cartman stood broad and Kyle stood narrow, Token cut a powerful medium. He made an impression, that much was for sure, and it occurred to her then why so many girls were interested in him.

He made his way across the stage and reached out his hand. "Come, Desdemona," he said, and she took it. "I have but an hour of love, of worldly matter and direction to spend with thee: we must obey the time."

As Token led her offstage, Cartman, still hanging back at the edges of the scene, caught her eye. He had an ugly look on his face and, quite out of the blue, she thought it was probably the look Iago would have worn then, too.

* * *

"I can't do this," Bebe said seriously, dropping her script to the floor. "I can't play this role."

Kenny scowled at her. He was tapping his own rolled-up script against the edge of the table he was sitting on. "Well, then, you shouldn't have auditioned for it."

Wendy cast him a wicked grin from where Red and Butters were taking her measurements. "Learnt that the hard way, didn't you?" she said smugly.

"There were only _three_ roles for girls, Kenny," Bebe objected. "I tried out for all of them. Of course, _you_ had to go and steal one of them..."

He held up his hand defensively. "I didn't ask for this."

"Oh, yes you did." Her tone was terse. "With that stupid poem. God, no wonder you're failing English. Did it take you all of about five minutes to come up with that?"

"Claws away, ladies," Wendy smirked, raising her arms as Red flourished a tape measure.

"Now, that wasn't a poem, Bebe," Butters said. "Th – that was a limerick."

She snorted. "Whatever. Now I'm stuck as Emilia! She's not got any fun, romantic scenes like Desdemona has."

Wendy wrinkled her nose. "I think Mrs Delancey is trying to teach me a lesson or something."

_Or you could have just genuinely been the best for the role_, Kenny thought, _and the world could not revolve around you_.

He didn't say it aloud.

He didn't mean to be bitter, he really didn't. In all honesty, he'd seen Delancey's vindictive side out in full force and wouldn't have been surprised if she _had_ targeted Wendy in some way. But he was fed up. He'd been sat here for an hour already while Butters and Red painstakingly checked and rechecked all of Bebe's measurements, and now had to sit and wait his turn while they worked on Wendy. He was going to be fitted for a _dress_ and a _pair of goddamn breasts._ He had to play fucking Bianca. _Bianca_, the trampy little bitch who was obsessed with Cassio, which meant he was going to have to spend a good portion of the play draping himself over Clyde.

Fuck's sake.

He was feeling a little less than charitable, then, and Wendy, always so clean-cut and black and white and _sure_ of herself, had suddenly become the target of a lot of bad-tempered thoughts.

"Oh come on, Wendy. Desdemona's the biggest female role in the play! Me and Kenny are barely in it."

"Thank God," Kenny muttered.

"Own fault," Wendy reminded him, before turning to look at Bebe. "What's so bad about Emilia? She's a brilliant character, you get to do a lot of shouting and stamping around and accusing men of being bastards."

"Um...um Wendy? Couldja possibly turn back please? S'just we need to get you finished here, so we can get started on Kenny." Butters tugged on the hem of Wendy's sleeve, and she turned back round.

"Sorry," she said, smiling. "Well, Bebe? What's so bad?"

Bebe's expression turned dark. "I'll give you a hint. The bad thing about Emilia is about six foot tall, four times my weight and entirely composed of hate and Cheesy Poofs."

Wendy sighed. "What's he done _now_?"

There was a knock on the door. Without waiting for a response, Craig entered the room.

"Uh, hey," Bebe said, pointing at him. "Girls getting measured here. We could be naked. Get the fuck out."

Craig ignored her. "Wendy or Kenny, I don't really care which. One of you has to do something about Cartman."

Wendy turned around again, ignoring Butter's attempt at catching her wrist. "I'm gonna have to take that one again," he muttered miserably, as his tape measure snapped back against his hand.

"Why are _you _pissed off with him?" Kenny asked curiously.

Craig definitely looked sort of angry. It was kind of cool, really, to see him exhibit any kind of emotion at all. "Because he's a fat-basket of shit and sin. First, he kept correcting the way I was reading lines through the _whole_ of rehearsal. I don't even want to fucking be here in the first place! Then, he took me aside and threatened me if I didn't put more effort in. I don't know who made Cartman God of Shakespeare or whatever, but so help me, I cannot take him much longer."

"Exactly!" Bebe exclaimed. "He's getting ridiculous. We've been practicing for _three days_ and he's already acting like he's that one guy who's in all the Shakespeare movies."

"He is a psychotic megalomaniac," Craig continued, "_playing_ a psychotic megalomaniac and I think I'm probably going to kill him before the end of the day if one of you doesn't fix him."

"I'll help Craig hide the evidence," Bebe said, looking grim.

"I swear to God, I'd do the jail time too. With a fucking smile."

Kenny grinned. "As if any jury would see the murder of Eric Cartman as anything but a service to society."

"Kenny!" Wendy reprimanded. "He's your best friend."

"And he's a vicious, insane bastard," he said agreeably. "You know it's true, Wends."

She let out an exasperated sigh. "I'll go talk to him." She hopped down off the stool. "Are we done, Butters?"

"You're gonna go anyway," he mumbled, knocking his fists together. Sure enough, before the words had even completely left his mouth, she had whirled out of the room, with Craig close on her heels.

Bebe snorted, and got to her feet. "Well," she said, brushing down her skirt. "I'll be damned if they're going to have all the fun without me."

She followed them out, and Red turned to Kenny.

"Guess you're up," she said, grimacing.

He sighed heavily. "Fuck this day," he told her seriously, climbing up onto the stool Wendy had just vacated.

Red rolled her eyes. "Man up, McCormick. Now, what cup size do you think would suit your frame best?" A wicked little smile played across her mouth.

Kenny stared at her mournfully. "I'm suffering enough without you taking pleasure in this, you know. Not only am I going to be forced to parade myself in drag in front of the entire town, but I'm starting to be held responsible for Cartman being...well, for Cartman. The least you can do is not gloat over my fake boobs."

Red turned her smile up at him. "I'm thinking a D cup. Maybe an E, just to make sure we get the point across."

The door banged open again, and Kenny twisted his head to see Clyde standing in the doorway.

"Is Craig in here?" He looked around, and not seeing Craig, changed track and asked, "_Was_ Craig in here?"

"He sure was!" Butter said. He seemed so happy to be of help that his bad mood almost melted. _At least that's one of us who hasn't changed_, he thought. "He came by awful sore about something Eric had done. He and Wendy and Bebe, well, they just went to find him!"

Clyde groaned. "Aww, God damnit, they're going to cause a scene."

Kenny frowned. "Is Cartman being _that_ bad?"

"He threatened to come after Stripes if Craig didn't get his act together."

He hissed in a breath. "Shit, that explains why Craig was so pissy."

Clyde pulled a face. "He's been pretty snappy since that shitty prank you two pulled." He grinned. "Seriously, you could at least have set fire to something."

"Hey, if you've got so many ideas, _you_ should have led the charge."

"Hell no. I actually wanted to be in this play, remember? Make sure his breasts look real," he told Red. "My wench had better look good."

Kenny gave Clyde his best imitation of Wendy's death glare. Clyde just grinned inanely at him before suddenly shaking his head.

"Shit, I'd better go find Craig. He's already in enough crap without getting in another fight. See you guys!"

After he was gone, Red turned to Butters and said very pleasantly, "Butters, could you possibly shift that chair against the door? If I don't finish this in the next ten minutes I'm gonna choke a whore. And seeing as the only whore here is Kenny..."

"_I'm not a whore, damn you, Bianca is not a prostitute!_"

* * *

Cartman was crashed out on his bed, throwing scrunched up pieces of homework at a mark two inches above his doorframe. He managed to hit it one time out of thirteen, which he knew was pretty fucking useless, but he decided to put it down to being pissed off, instead of being a crappy aim.

He had a damn good reason to be pissed off, too.

His plan had been working so fucking well. _Step 1: Force everyone to enjoy the play_, which was what he'd been trying to do. Sure, the assholes had been a little more resistant than he'd expected, but he figured that would only set him back a week at most. Once he dug up some _persuasive reasons_ for the rest of the cast to pour their hearts and souls into this, he was certain things would come together.

_Step 2: Tell Wendy you pulled the play together for her since she likes Shakespeare so much._

Yeah, _that_ wasn't exactly going as plan. "Step 2.5" hadn't involved Wendy _chewing him out_ in front of their entire fucking drama class – most of their goddamn _year_ – telling him to watch his manners and lay off everyone. She'd been in one of her Ice Queen moods, spouting off shit like, "It's for your own good, Cartman", and "unless you want everyone else to make damn sure you're booted off this play..."

For a good two minutes, he'd just stood there and took it. He'll give her this one: she'd stunned him. With her so passionate, trailing Craig and Bebe behind her like she was the ringleader of some gang, all that fire in her eyes and on her tongue...he just came to a halt. He didn't want her angry at him. She was supposed to be angry at _Craig_ for pissing about, or _Kenny_. Not him.

And then he'd realised everyone had been looking – s_taring_ – and so he'd done the first thing that occurred to him: shouting back.

Cartman knew he shouldn't have got the kind of thrill he did out of their argument, but he couldn't help it. Fighting with Wendy wasn't comparable to fighting with anyone else, except Kyle. And Kyle was a deceitful Jew rat who was going to burn in hell. Wendy, on the other hand, wasn't _really_ a hippie, and he knew it. But she was wild and angry and strong, and frankly ridiculously fucking hot.

And she _liked_ him.

Maybe she didn't know it yet, but she definitely did. He'd seen her after his audition – she'd been more out of breath than he was. For a kink, it was pretty messed up, but if Shakespeare was what did it for Wendy Testaburger, Shakespeare was what Cartman was going to give her.

_Step 3: Ask her out in Shakespeare language. NB: Blackmail Kyle into scripting it._

The doorbell rang, and he couldn't stop himself from sitting up, suddenly alert.

_It won't be her,_ he told himself. _She's not coming today. _

It was Thursday night, and every week at six thirty on a Thursday night, Wendy would ring his doorbell. She'd be sent upstairs by his mom, and he'd be lying on his bed pretending like he hadn't been watching the clock since five. She'd pull something like a couple of cupcakes or a bag of chips (or on really _bad_ days, organic carrot sticks and dip) out of her bag, and sit down at the foot of his bed. He'd get up, collect his Spanish books from where they sure as hell weren't stacked neatly awaiting her arrival, and he would have her _all to himself_ for two hours while he tutored her.

It was the only subject she was weak in, and he, being obviously so good-natured and generous to his friends, was only too happy to help.

Plus, he kept himself amused by slipping in raunchy things in Spanish that she wouldn't understand.

_But she's not gonna come today,_ he thought, as he listened to his mom talking to someone at the door. _We had a huge blow out. She's not gonna come grovelling for Spanish help. No way. Don't get your hopes up._

Someone was coming up the stairs, too light on their feet to be his mom.

_She isn't coming. It's Kenny. He just sounds as skinny as she does because he's a malnourished little dick._

But the soft knock on his bedroom door confirmed it. Wendy was the only one who knocked like that – knocked like she actually _cared_ about getting permission to come in.

"Enter," he called, taking aim with the last piece of paper he had to hand. The door opened and she appeared, and steadying his hand, he lobbed the paper directly at her forehead.

It soared above her head, and she gave him a critical look.

"That's the best you can do?"

"_Silencio, puta_. Didn't wanna force you to shovel even more sand in your vagina today. I missed on purpose, obviously." He dropped back down onto the bed.

Wendy snorted derisively. "Yeah, right." She sat down on his bed, opening her bag. "Because you were an asshole today, I didn't bring any snacks."

"What?" Cartman exclaimed. "Hey ho, how was _I_ the asshole? Seriously? I was trying to get everyone super interested in the play and you come in and rip me open for it!"

She sighed. "Shouting at them isn't going to make them want to do it!"

_Well, sure, not until I have some_ persuasive reasons_ for them to, but that's gonna take time. What does she want from me?_

"Anyway," Wendy was saying, "I'm having some trouble with the conditional tense."

"Again?" he asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow. _Seriously, sometimes I think she makes up these problems just to hang with me_.

He'd meant it derisively, but as soon as he thought it, something uncomfortable and fluttery started up in his gut. He crossed his arms over his stomach instinctively, like that would do anything to stop him feeling so fucking _nervous_ and _excited_ whenever he figured he had a shot with her.

He looked up, and saw that she was frowning with him. "Are you okay?" she asked with concern. "We don't have to do the conditional tense if it annoys you."

_Jesus Christ I could just pin her down now. I bet you anything she'd let me._

"Bitch, I'm not getting _anything_ out of these sessions –" lie, lie, lie – "so we might as well do whatever you're fucking up worst on."

"Okay." Pulling out her textbook, she flipped to the verb glossary. "I don't understand what happens to irregular verbs."

"All the pot has rotted your brain," he told her. She thumped him in the arm. _"Hey!"_

She smiled wickedly. With her hair all swept over one shoulder and her one bang just falling into her eye like that, and that _smile, _all coy and confident and self-assured...

God, he had to get a handle on this thing soon. Or at least get Wendy to be his ho before he fucking _exploded._

"You've already used up all your Wendy Tolerance Points today, Cartman," she told him. "You're working on borrowed time now, so play nice."

Shit, even 'play nice' was bringing uncomfortable images to mind. He scooted closer to her, on the pretence of looking over her shoulder at the book. With his hand splayed behind her, and their faces so close, he could practically _taste_ how easy it would be. Knock the books out of her hands, use her surprise as an opportunity to push her backwards, catch her with his other arm...and then _kiss_ her, and she'd cave. Inevitably. _Perfectly_.

He wondered what kissing Wendy would be like. When she'd been with Stan, he'd seen them kiss sometimes, and it had always looked pretty soft and delicate. Cartman was big and clumsy and didn't have anywhere near as much experience with girls as Stan did. He wasn't sure he _could_ pull off soft and delicate, even if he got the chance.

"Cartman?"

He jolted out of it, realising he'd been staring at her. She looked a little disconcerted, and her cheeks were pink. He could smell the fresh scent of her shampoo, and the light lilt of the apricot body scrub he'd got her for Christmas. His heart did an annoying little skip every time he realised she'd been using it.

"Yeah," he said, looking back down at the textbook. "Right. Well, I'm gonna have to explain this in baby terms seeing as you _still_ don't get it –"

"Tolerance Points, Cartman," she warned, and he almost sighed in relief. They were back to the way they had been before he'd brain-blanked into gawking at her. _Sweet._

She picked up irregular verbs in the conditional tense pretty quickly for someone who was having as many problems with it as she claimed she was. He managed to keep himself under control and didn't start fucking _staring_ at her and sniffing her hair again, which was good. At about ten past seven, his phone started buzzing in a text message, and he broke off mid-explanation to check it.

As he pulled it out of his pocket, he heard Wendy's beeping as well.

_1 New Message  
Kenny Poor_

09/10/2010  
Kenny Poor  
im dying. shakespeare wants my soul in order to resurrect his zombie corpse and take over the world. starks tomoz PLZ PLZ PLZ. x

"Did you get this?" Wendy asked, showing him her phone, an identical message displayed on the screen. "Does he mean to hang out over night again?"

"Yeah. Friday night camp out at Stark's Pond sounds pretty awesome right now. "

Wendy pulled a face. "Bebe has a party on tomorrow night, too."

"So?" Cartman said. "We're way cooler. And our camp outs are always fucking awesome. Kenny always gets trashed and starts believing he's a frog."

"Because you keep _convincing_ him he's a frog," Wendy said, disapprovingly.

Cartman dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand. "Come on. Are you in?"

She shook her head. "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm going to have a quiet night in. I'm so _tired_ after this week."

"No," he said stoutly. "You've gotta come. It's our thing – you, me and poor boy kicking it at the pond to chill out. Wendy, you have to come!"

Wendy closed her Spanish books. "I'm done," she said. "I ought to head home if I want an early night."

"What? It's only quarter past seven!" He glanced at the clock to check he was right.

"I'm exhausted," she said, apologetically. "Please, I just want to hit the sack."

She did look really tired. Cartman cursed himself when he felt his heart softening for her. _Fuck's sake, get a grip dude!_

"Can I give you a ride home?" he offered, and she looked at him as if he was insane.

"On your motorcycle? Er, _no_."

"I have a spare helmet!"

"_You drive like a psychopath._"

"Hey," he protested. "I've never crashed once. You'll be perfectly safe. I swear on Hitler."

A faint look of discomfort crossed Wendy's face. "I really don't wanna get on that bike..."

"Come on," Cartman wheedled. "Let me give you a ride home, and I won't pester you about Stark's tomorrow. Come oooon."

Still looking uncertain, she said, "Well, alright. I suppose so. Only this once, because I'm wiped."

He punched the air. "Fuck yes, Kenny's gonna owe me ten dollars."

"Oh, no, you two didn't _bet_ on who could get me onto one of those death machines first, did you?"

Cartman rolled his eyes. "Of _course_ we did."

Sighing, she stood up. "Come on, let's get this over with."

They headed downstairs. Cartman doubled back to get his helmets while Wendy made small talk with his mother, chatting about the play. The spare helmet would fit Wendy. He knew it would. He'd picked it based on her size.

"...oh, I wouldn't worry, dear, I'm sure you'll make a wonderful Desdemona. Eric always speaks very highly of you."

He re-emerged into the living room just in time to hear his mother deliver that line to Wendy. "_Mom_!" he said, horrified.

"I was just saying goodbye to Wendy, poopsikins."

He ignored the irritating term of endearment and grabbed Wendy by the elbow. "Let's go."

She was nervous about climbing onto his bike. He didn't understand it personally, but when they were ready to set off and he found she was clinging to him a little bit tighter than was necessary, her helmet resting against his back, he didn't really mind.

Her grip tightened when the loud noise of the engine starting ripped through the air. He tried to promise her he'd drive safe for once, but he knew she couldn't hear him. He set off and picked up speed, staying nearly twenty miles an hour slower than his normal pace. Wendy still clung onto him as he swerved down the streets towards her house, and even after they had stopped outside her door, she didn't seem inclined to let go.

Pulling off his helmet, he said, "Wendy, we've _stopped_."

She said something he couldn't quite make out through the helmet, but it sounded along the lines of "I'm okay here, thanks."

Reluctantly, he prised her fingers away from his sweater, feeling how cold they were under his gloves. Tentatively, he rubbed them in his hands, trying to warm her up. After a moment or two, Wendy slowly pulled away. He helped her down from the bike, and undid her helmet.

"Terrifying," she said shakily. She punched him weakly in the chest. "Never make me do that again."

"It gets way better after the first time," he assured her. He pulled off a glove and tidied up her hair from where the helmet had mussed it. She gave him an odd look. "What? You want your parents to see you looking all messed up after _I've _dropped you off?"

_Plus I really wanted to touch your hair, okay?_

She still looked pensive, and he mustered the nerve to ask what he'd been meaning to all evening. "You're still mad at me from today, aren't you?"

"Today?" She stared at him. "Cartman, don't be an idiot. If I held a grudge every time you pissed me off and we had a fight, we'd have a pretty crappy friendship. I'm just shaky because of that _thing._" She smiled, and nodded at the motorcycle.

"Oh. Okay. I was just – well, you know as well as me how kickass this play is. I just want everyone _else_ to see that." He put on his best subtly-sycophantic voice, even though he knew full when it had stopped cutting it with Wendy years ago.

"And that's very admirable," she said, with the tone of a kindergarten teacher, patting him on the chest. "But Cartman, we've been through this before. We can't get people to agree with us by shouting at them."

"I know, I know," he grumbled, putting his glove back on.

"What do we have to use?"

"Deceit, manipulation and persuasion," he recited. "Come on, Wendy, I know this shit, I've been doing it longer than_ you _have." _Even if the fact that you do it too is the fucking hottest thing ever._

Wendy arched her eyebrows, leaning back against his bike. "Oh really?"

"Yeah, _really_."

"Well," she said, giving him another spitfire grin. "I'm clearly better at it than you, then. Seeing as how everyone thinks you're a complete bastard and doesn't trust you as far as they could throw you, and everyone thinks _I'm_ just a geeky teacher's pet with a little bit of drive."

"It's 'cause you're hot," he said. "You can get away with murder if you're hot. Almost literally. Look at Bundy."

Wendy's jaw dropped. "You did _not_ just compare me to Bundy."

"Course not," he said, flashing her a smile.

He didn't want to say good night. When it came to her, he _never_ did. _Find something to say_, he thought. _Anything. Just don't keep _standing_ here._

Wendy was the one who broke the gathering silence. "So," she said. "Your mom said you – er – 'speak very highly of me'?"

There was a ghost of a grin on her face, and he shoved her gently. "Shut the fuck up."

"And this speaking highly of me, does it come in the form of comparing me to serial killers?"

"Oh yeah, all the time." He kept his tone blasé, and he saw her smile widen a little, clearly in spite of herself. Her eyes were hooded slightly, and she was starting to look sleepy. "You look like you're about to pass out."

She yawned. "Told you I was tired. Seriously, you talk about me to your _mom_?"

Cartman could feel his cheeks starting to colour. "You're over my house every week, ho. She was curious."

Wendy didn't look convinced. But then again, she didn't exactly look suspicious, either. "See you tomorrow," she said, rolling her eyes. She paused for a moment, and then leant up and gave him a quick hug. "Drive safe, alright? And don't ever compare me to a serial killer again." Then, she had slipped away from his bike and had turned up the path to her front door. He watched her go, his heart beating a little out of pace, and raised a hand when she turned to smile at him before disappearing inside.

Shaking his head to try to clear it, he climbed on his bike and headed home.

At a _proper _speed this time.

* * *

"Because it's wrong, that's why!" Clyde exclaimed.

The look Craig gave him was as uncomprehending as it was uncaring. "Huh?"

"_That's_ why you shouldn't take money from little kids at the arcade. Because it's _wrong_."

"But they're so little and easy to take money from," Craig tried to explain, clearly not grasping Clyde's point at all.

"Craig, how would you have liked it if when you were a kid, high schoolers had come up to you and taken your allowance, huh?"

"They did take my allowance. All the time. And when they didn't, I got conned out of it."

"See?" Clyde spread his hands. "And that wasn't cool, was it?"

"No," Craig admitted. "But now I'm bigger and too much of a bastard to be conned so I'm doing it to them. It's called the circle of life and it's the only way they'll learn."

Clyde sighed. "I'm wasting my time, aren't I?"

Craig shrugged. "Dude, if it helps you sleep at night, carry the fuck on."

It was coming on to six in the evening, and they were lounging about inside the arcade. Craig was moving from machine to machine, alternating gambling and shoot-em-ups, using the coins he'd fleeced from unfortunate kids hanging round the prize shack. Clyde had only found enough cash in the bottom of his wallet to pay two of them back, and now he was slumped at Craig's feet, trying to ignore the dirty looks the collection of eight-year-olds over by the claw machine kept sending them.

"You're such a dick, Craig."

"I know. But you'd be scared if I stopped being a dick. Just like you'd be scared if Cartman suddenly got thin or Token asked if he could borrow two dollars."

Clyde had to concede the point. "I wish Cartman would get thin," he said, almost wistfully. "He's tall and he's pretty fucking mean. If he turned that blubber into muscle he'd be a monster on the team."

Craig stared down at him. "If he became a super-buff football star he'd also probably be able to get any girl he wanted," he pointed out, and Clyde's expression darkened, catching his friend's none-too-subtle meaning.

"Wendy doesn't like him, God damnit. You saw her shouting at him yesterday." He elbowed Craig in the knee.

Ignoring him, Craig turned his attention back to the machine. "Shall I visit the cellar, you reckon?" he asked.

"You what now?" Clyde blinked.

"Bonus round. This shit is Haunted House themed. Shall I visit the cellar?" Craig banged his thumb against the glowing 'start' button. "Yeah, you're right, it's not my money, may as well go for it. And what I _saw_," he added, grinning a little as the machine dinged another dollar into his prize fund, "was Wendy heading round to Cartman's house last night. _After_ their fight."

"It doesn't mean anything," Clyde insisted.

"All I'm saying is she forgave him pretty quickly. Hot damn, _Jackpot_. I'm on fucking fire today." The machine cashed out, and Craig crouched down to scoop up his winnings. He had a weird, gloating expression on his face that he always reserved for Arcade Night.

"You're a creepy shit sometimes," Clyde told him.

"Fuck you, Clyde, this is essentially eighteen dollars of free money."

"Good. Now you can pay the kids back."

Craig laughed. "Like hell. I'm gonna go get a box of donuts, and then come back here. You want?"

"I guess." He pushed himself to his feet, swinging his arms to get some feeling back. "I want jelly filled, though."

"Seriously still can't believe you eat those things." Craig wrinkled his nose and felt around in the metal tray to see if he'd missed any money. Then, he stood up. "It's all fucking coagulated in there. Jelly donuts are messed up."

"Yeah," Clyde deadpanned. "Jelly donuts are immoral but stealing kid's money's just _fine_."

Craig flipped him off. "I'm good for moral guidance today, thanks."

The gathering gloom outside the arcade was cold, and Clyde pulled his jacket collar up against the wind. Craig snickered, his hoodie still looped round his waist. He muttered something about 'tough football types can't even take a little cold', and Clyde socked him in the ear.

"Motherfucker," Craig grunted.

"Buy me donuts, asshole. I don't have a thick, protective skin of dickwaddery like you."

"Maybe that's your problem."

Clyde stopped at the edge of the road to check for cars, hurrying to catch up when he realised Craig hadn't stopped. "Hey. What do you mean?"

"Cartman's a dickwad. And he's got Wendy eating out of his palm..."

"For fuck's sake, Craig, stop going on about Cartman and Wendy! Jesus! They've been friends for years, don't you think he'd have made a fucking move by now if he had a chance?" He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and shouldered past Craig, reaching the other side of the road first. "Why'd you keep bringing that up?"

"Because it's fucking hilarious to see you get all defensive." Clyde turned around and saw that Craig had stopped a few feet from the sidewalk. "Wait, wait, wait. You seriously like her, don't you?"

Clyde stared at him. _"Yeah_. Why do you think I tried out for the fucking stud out of that play, dude?"

"Who, Cassio?"

"Yeah, man. Everyone's always like 'he's so awesome' and at the end he's pretty much the only one left alive. He's totally noble and shit all the way through."

Craig raised his eyebrows. "And you think the way to Wendy's heart is..." He trailed off, and then pulled a contemplative face. "Then again, Kenny did say something about Cartman apparently getting her to fall all over him 'cause of his audition."

"Craig," Clyde groaned, "seriously, can you give it a rest..."

"No, dude, I'm serious. Here." He covered the last few paces towards Craig and produced his phone. "Check it out."

Clyde looked at the text on the screen.

03/10/2010 11:51  
Kenny  
no, fatass was no fucking help. larfed himself senseless the twat. he's all buzin about wendy gushing everywhere over his try out yesterday. apparently shakespeare gets her hot or sth. IM DOOMED

"What's he talking about?" he asked.

Craig grimaced. "Our roles in the play. Wendy's been on his case about it, trying to get him to put more effort in –"

"Woah, woah – hold up." Clyde handed the phone back to Craig, squinting at him suspiciously. "Since when are you buddy-buddy with McCormick?"

Craig shrugged. "I'm not buddy-buddy, for Christ's sake, we've just hung out a bit 'cause of this play and shit."

"You have a direct line into Wendy's closest circle of friends and you're using it to make better jabs at me about Cartman? Weak, dude."

"Hey, don't be that way. I hadn't thought of it like that." Craig punched him lightly in the arm. "Come on, I only just realised how much you liked this chick. Of course I'll help out."

Clyde gave him a sidelong look. "Will you put effort into the play so it looks like we're both totally awesome at Shakespeare?"

"Fucking hell no."

Clyde grimaced. "Fair enough. But you think I might be onto something with the Cassio thing?"

"Clyde, if something can work for Eric Cartman – and let's be honest, he's marginally less fuckable than a walrus with AIDS – it can work for you."

It bolstered him a little to know that Craig was actually on his side now. He scratched his ear thoughtfully. "Reckon I should try to get her to come to the party tonight?"

"Yeah, man!" Craig enthusiastically slapped him on the shoulder. "Call her. But first: donuts."

"Owards to jelly-filled goodness?" Clyde asked hopefully.

Craig shook his head. "My money, my rules, jackass. Follow on."

* * *

10/10/2010 17:01  
Kenny Poor  
DUDE LOOK AT THE DATE THE APOCALYPSE IS COMING

10/10/2010 17:22  
Fatass  
Thats 2012 dumbass

10/10/2010 17:23  
Kenny Poor  
plan for 2nite GIMME GIMME GIMME

10/10/2010 17:24  
Fatass  
Are you on crack again

10/10/2010 17:27  
Kenny Poor  
I'M EXCITED ABOUT NO MORE DRAMA UNTIL MONDAY. U WOULD FEEL THE SAME WAY IF U WERE ME.

10/10/2010 17:31  
Fatass  
Starks 7ish then. Wendy's not coming.

10/10/2010 17:32  
Kenny Poor  
dude lame. is she flicking her bean to othello or sth

10/10/2010 17:40  
Fatass  
She said she wasn't into Token

10/10/2010 17:42  
Kenny Poor  
who said anything bout token?

10/10/2010 17:46  
Fatass  
Nevermind

10/10/2010 17:48  
Kenny Poor  
it must be hell inside ur head. see u at 7! xxxxxxxxxx

10/10/2010 17:50  
Fatass  
Fag.

* * *

Wendy's parents were out. They were having dinner with some friends in Denver and wouldn't be back until late. She was the only one in her house, and it was oddly quiet. With Cartman and Kenny camped out at Stark's Pond, she could expect no interruptions beyond a loud, drunken phone call one hour after whenever she decided to go to bed. Ahead of her lay a long, boring night.

_Perfect_, she thought, smiling to herself. She was sitting on her bed, curled up in an oversized jumper, trying to decide between a DVD or rereading _Frankenstein_, when her phone rang. Picking it up, she frowned at her caller ID, and said, "Clyde?"

"Wendy!" Clyde's voice came down the line loudly, and Wendy shifted the phone slightly off her ear. "Why aren't you out tonight?"

"I told you! I'm tired, I need a break. I've been on my feet all week with this play. _And_," she added, "you _saw_ that argument yesterday."

Clyde laughed down the phone. He had a nice laugh, Wendy thought. Clyde was one of the most normal guys out of their class. He was a little uninspiring, sure, but he was one of the most laid-back and genuinely good-hearted, next to Stan. "Wendy, anyone who didn't see that fight _heard_ it. I swear, the only person with a louder voice than you is Cartman, and when the two of you start going at it –"

Wendy put a hand to her cheek, embarrassed, but she was smiling. "Oh, God, it was terrible, wasn't it?"

"No!" Clyde said. "Seriously, Wendy, you didn't see him. He was going full-on control freak trying to tell everyone how to say their lines. He's actually won Delancey over. It's fucking scary."

"He has that kind of effect on people, unfortunately," Wendy admitted, shifting so that she could lie down. "Are you going to Bebe's party tonight?"

"Yeah, I should be heading over in about half an hour. I'm designated driver, though, which sucks, so it's sodas for me all night." There was a pause, and then he said, "Does he have that kind of effect on _you_?"

"What?"

"Cartman," he clarified. "You said he had a sort of effect on people. Does he have that effect on you?"

She sat back up frowning. "I don't think so. People that have known him as long as you and me have are pretty immune, I think."

"Oh, okay." Clyde sounded odd.

"What is it?"

"Well, you know. All the rumours about you and him."

She let out a heavy sigh. So people really _did_ think...? "Just rumours," she assured him. "Trust me. Do you really think _Cartman_ would keep it quiet if he actually managed to bag a girlfriend?"

Clyde laughed again. Wendy was discovering that she liked the sound. "Yeah, that's true, I guess. Plus...I don't know...is he really your type?"

"No," Wendy told him with certainty. "Definitely not. His only redeeming feature is that I _suppose_ he's quite smart."

"You sure hang out with him a lot for someone with only one redeeming feature," he teased.

She grimaced. "I think of him like a bad penny. Or those strays that you feed once and then they follow you around for weeks."

"He's an asshole," Clyde agreed. "He's stressed you out so much that you can't even come hang out with everyone tonight."

"Clyde, that's not the only reason. I just need a break."

"You need a break from the stress of being around Cartman," he said sagely. "Doesn't a party at Bebe's sound like just the ticket? A few free drinks, some good music, hanging out with everyone...sounds like fun, right?"

She smiled into the phone. "I'm not coming to the party, Clyde."

"Aw, come on," he wheedled. "A few hours. Two hours. _One_ hour. I'll pick you up and drop you off. I'll drive you home whenever you want."

"Clyde..."

"What, did you have big plans? Seriously, what would you be doing tonight otherwise? Go on, tell me. What's better than chilling at Bebe's?"

She glanced around her room. "Well, I was going to watch a DVD, maybe..."

"Great! Bring it! Bebe's got a nice TV! You can watch the DVD there. Couple of drinks, tunes, good people. What do you say, is it a plan?"

"No!" she laughed, marvelling at his persistence. "I'm not coming!"

"Cool, I'll be at your house in twenty minutes. You better be ready, I'm not hanging around!"

"Clyde! No! I –"

But he'd already hung up. Wendy found herself staring at her phone in disbelief, still smiling a little, and thinking that maybe the party _wouldn't_ be so bad. She hadn't seen much of Bebe that day, and it would be nice to catch up with Stan and Kyle for a bit. Besides, Clyde had seemed _really_ eager to tempt her out, and it had been a while since she'd been out anywhere without Kenny or Cartman...

Her mind made up, she climbed off her bed. She pulled off the jumper and folded it onto the bottom of her bed, running a hand through her hair. What to wear?

She had already changed into a denim skirt and a slinky black top, and was applying mascara when it occurred to her that maybe she should call Kenny and let him know what she was doing.

_I did blow them off,_ she thought, _but the whole point of going to the party tonight is to get away from Cartman being a dick for a while. No. It'll be fine. I'll just see them Monday._

She was spraying a final spritz of perfume onto her neck when a horn beeped outside. Leaning out of her window, she saw Clyde's car stopped outside her house, and Clyde himself sticking his head out of the driver's side.

"Hurry up!" he called. "You've had ages to play with your hair!"

"Shut up! I'm coming down now."

She hurried downstairs, grabbing her coat on the way out. Clyde had gotten out of the car to meet her, and he held the passenger-side door open for her.

He mock-bowed. "My lady, your carriage."

"I'll kill you and take your keys," she warned.

He shrugged. "Chicks can't drive."

She gaped at him as he slid back into his seat. "Say that again," she challenged.

Clyde snickered. "You kidding? I had to borrow Craig's balls just to get the guts to say it once. No, that's my bravado for the night maxed out, let me tell you."

Despite herself, she was smiling again. "_One_ hour," she said, sternly.

"Sure, sure," Craig promised, grinning at her and reversing out of her driveway. He glanced sideways in the mirror, and when he caught her eye, he winked. "We'll have you home by midnight, Cinderella, don't stress it."

She rolled her eyes. "Alright, alright. Just don't drive too – _agh_!"

Her last word was cut off as Clyde powered forwards, speeding into the night.


	6. Hats Off To Us

Disclaimer: I still don't own this thing. Lyric lines: Old White Lincoln, by Gaslight Anthem.

Note: OH MY GOD THE UNTHINKABLE HAS HAPPENED, THIS CHAPTER ISN'T ACTUALLY ABOUT THE PLAY. Isn't that super cool, you guys? I'm hopped up right now. Massively. So let's make this quick. I try to keep Othello references out of interfering with the plot, but here's there's overlap. Cliff notes on CASSIO: he's promoted over Iago, by Othello, to be Othello's lieutenant. He's described as a 'great arithmetician', never having been in a war before, and he's dashingly handsome and gentlemanly, 'framed to make women false'. He's a sweetie. And that's all you'll need.

There is a lot of drama here and I don't know how it went. This is a BIG chapter, size and content, and I would really appreciate feedback. I just want it out of my life. To anyone I haven't replied to: shit's been crazy. Drop me a line again and I'll respond. Promise. And now, enjoy.

x

**Chapter Six  
Hats Off To Us**

_if i could write  
i'd tell you how much i miss these nights  
where we dig around the bones  
trying to find peace, and patches for the holes _

**

* * *

**

It was pretty fucking quiet.

Stark's Pond was usually quiet, but their camp outs had a tendency to bring with them a hell of a lot of noise and activity. Even thought it was more often than not just the three of them, Kenny'd found that between Wendy and Cartman's arguments, his loud, Southern-accented sea shanties and the general revelry of clinking bottles and shuffling sleeping bags, they generated a fair amount of volume.

Tonight, though...nothing.

Just Kenny sitting there, toying with an unopened beer bottle, reluctant to disturb Cartman's moody silence by asking if he could use the bottle opener on his belt.

The fat fuck had been almost completely silent since they'd got out there. He'd said a few words while they were trying to set up the tents, and then he'd gone quiet, eventually abandoning it as a pointless effort. Kenny'd soldiered on with his own tent, but hadn't had much enthusiasm for it. He'd tried to start up conversation a few times – even going so far as to bring out the big guns (_so they measured me for tits yesterday_) – but Cartman was unresponsive.

The bastard was in one bad-ass mood, and it was getting Kenny down.

"Seriously," he said, "if you're just going to sulk, we should bail."

"Fuck you, Kenny."

Kenny sighed. "_Why_ are you so pissy?"

Cartman didn't answer, and the night ahead looked long and bleak.

"Right," Kenny said, getting to his feet and starting to cram his stuff back into its bags. Cartman turned to follow what he was doing, but Kenny couldn't see a trace of interest on his face. "Fuck this. I'm gonna head to Bebe's."

Cartman turned back to stare out at the pond.

Gathering up his bag, Kenny poked him in the ribs with his toes. "You should come," he said. "Seriously, dude. Alcohol, people – it'll get your mind of it. _Seriously._"

"It's Wendy," Cartman said gruffly.

Tentatively, Kenny sat back down. "Because she didn't come tonight?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. I guess. Like _tired_ is a good excuse." The curtains were drawn across Cartman's eyes, but there was something hesitant in his tone that warned Kenny that he might be on the brink of admitting something big.

But this was Eric Theodore Cartman, and if Kenny knew him half as well as he thought he did, then he was going to need some prompting. "You like her," he said.

Cartman flashed him a quick, guilty look, and said, "maybe."

_That's a 'yes', then. After all this time of fucking about and never actually coming out with it, here is is_. "So...what's the issue?"

This time, Cartman refused to look at him. "Don't be a jackass. Like you don't know what the fucking issue is."

Kenny frowned. "I thought things were going well? You were pretty stoked after your audition last week."

"Yeah...I...I dunno." Cartman crossed his arms over his knees and rested his chin on them. He looked sideways at Kenny, a nasty look in his eyes. "You tell anyone, I'll kill you. Twice."

"Dude, you're my best friend. I'm not gonna fucking tell anyone." _They already know. Anyone who's got fucking eyes, at least_.

"_She's_ your friend, too. Seriously, you let on and I will make you hurt, McCormick."

Kenny raised his eyebrows. "No need to get all mafia on me, bud. We're cool." He drew a breath. "I still don't get why you're being so pissy."

"Fuckng hell. I just hate feeling this way. Some bitch having control over my head. One little thing and I'm like _this_."

Kenny squeezed his shoulder sympathetically. "There's only one thing to do, really," he said.

"What's that?"

With a serious expression, he answered, "Party at Bebe's."

To his very great relief, Cartman smiled. "Fine, asshole. Let's go."

* * *

The party wasn't all that bad, really.

The music wasn't too loud, and Bebe had put out a pretty decent spread of snacks. She'd even managed to sweet-talk Kevin into guarding it from being used as missiles or drinks ingredients, and was keeping fairly close tabs on the amount of alcohol leaving the kitchen. She was, to her credit, one hell of an organiser, and one hell of a host.

Everything felt relaxed. For the first time in – well, it must have been months – Wendy didn't feel as if disaster was imminent, or as if she was enjoying the last few moments of calm before a storm. Kenny and Cartman were fantastic, she would be the first to admit it, but she also had to admit that a night away from them had been exactly what she needed.

God, it was so _peaceful_, and to her surprise, Wendy was actually enjoying herself.

A pair of hands came down suddenly on her shoulders, and a voice said into her ear, "One hour, and five minutes."

Turning around, Wendy found Clyde standing behind her. She smiled up at him. "An hour and five minutes?"

"That's how long we've been here," he explained. "And I promised I wouldn't make you stay after an hour. So I'm here to offer to take you home."

Wendy was surprised. She'd spent so long around Kenny, who could rarely remember if he'd promised her something, and Cartman, who didn't care, that having Clyde come up to her, actually prepared to put himself out for her benefit, was...nice.

It was nice.

"I think I might stay a little longer," she said, giving him a look that said she knew full well he'd expected she would.

"Good!" he laughed. "You want another drink?"

Wendy looked down at her nearly empty glass. "Sure," she said, and knocked back what was left. "Vodka and Coke?"

"You got it."

Clyde disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Alone again, Wendy idly leant against the back of Bebe's sofa, only to have it knocked into her spine when she felt a couple of people drop onto it. Turning around, she saw Stan and Kyle looking up at her, wearing identical grins.

"Hey Wendy," they said, almost in union.

"Hi Stan, hi Kyle." She leant over the back of the sofa. "How's it going?"

"Same old, same old," Stan said, shrugging. He brandished his bottle of beer. "Good times, you know?"

Kyle rolled his eyes and mouthed, "he's plastered." Wendy smirked. He did, indeed, seem drunker than Kyle, but Kyle's uncanny ability to ingest vast amounts of alcohol and stay lucid was legendary. It was almost alarming, in some respects – Kyle had grown up angular and languid, and he was full of a kind of coiled energy that made him a terror in a fight. His and Stan's dynamic partnership had never lost its momentum, becoming the only steady thing in a high school sea of changing faces and fading friendships.

Stan was still very much the same. He still played football, growing most of the way into the body his uncle had hoped for. He'd gotten glasses at thirteen, and had spent most of his time then on trying to extricate Kyle from fights started by someone cracking a 'four eyes' joke. Every now and then, the pair of them would disappear, and come back with a story so unbelievable it simply had to be true. Smart and strong they might have been, but Wendy knew that imagination had always been Cartman's domain.

"Didn't know you were coming!" Stan said amicably, offering her his beer. She took a polite sip.

"Yeah, Kenny was saying how you wouldn't go to Stark's with them 'cause you were tired or something."

Wendy grimaced, passing Stan his beer back. "Clyde turned up at my house and persuaded me to come out. Practically dragged me."

Stan and Kyle exchanged a significant look. "Picking Clyde over the terrible two, are you?" Kyle said, raising an eyebrow. "Finally decided a footballer's body beats out a beached whale?"

Wendy slapped him on the head. "Quiet, you. I just wanted a night away from them, you know?"

"Cartman's crazy," Kyle agreed.

"Kenny has a tendency to get everyone around him into shit."

Wendy nodded. "Exactly. And this last week..."

Stan laughed. "They've been fucking _crazy_. I swear, I've never been so glad to be an understudy in my life, you know?"

"You're only an understudy because that fat shit _spiked_ you," Kyle said disapprovingly. "We still need to plan our revenge, you know."

"I'd wait, if I were you," Wendy advised them, while she tried to stop her brain from screaming _SPIKED? _ over and over again. "He's been even more militant than usual lately. You're probably better off letting him calm down before you piss him off again."

"Hey, _we're_ not the reason he's gone all Commandant!"

"We thought _you_ were."

Wendy stared at them blankly. "Me?"

Stan shrugged. "You know. Seeing as he obviously has a massive raging boner for you."

"Tiny raging boner," Kyle corrected. "Let's be realistic, Stan."

Wendy flushed. "Stop it. Not you two, too! They're just _rumours_."

Kyle coughed, and there was something in it that sounded distinctly like 'smoke' and 'fire'. She slapped his head again.

"Hey, lay off the 'fro." Stan batted her hand away. "Finders keepers, and _I _got here first."

She rolled her eyes. "You two are incorrigible."

"We know."

"We _try_."

"...Happy to hear it." Wendy turned away, looking towards the kitchen. Clyde was heading towards her, a fresh drink in his hand. She smiled, and headed towards him.

"Hey," he said, when she reached him. "Your drink."

She took it as carefully as she could. "Thanks," she said, taking a sip.

Clyde raised his can of Coke in a mock toast. "What do you think? Here's to us, the brave few, we who survived the wrath of Delancey and live to fight again? Or here's to us, the doomed souls of the sinking ship S.S. Shakespeare?"

Wendy giggled. "I've got a feeling the second one's a little bit more accurate."

"Which sucks. I don't know why the hell I thought this would be a good idea."

"I don't know," Wendy said, "but you're making an awesome Cassio."

Clyde quirked an eyebrow. "A great arithmetician, indeed. Pretty funny, since I'm fucking failing calculus. And yes, I _know_ that's not what it means," he added, as she opened her mouth. "But hell if I have a problem with everyone constantly going on about how good-looking I am."

"It's not you, asswipe," she teased, poking him in the chest. "It's your _character_."

"Hey," Clyde said, "I'm a pretty shitty actor. Every son of a bitch around knows that. I'm clearly in this play for my pretty face."

Wendy found herself laughing again. Clyde wasn't perfect, not by a long stretch, but maybe he wasn't really as boring as everyone said.

* * *

Craig Tucker was drunk.

He wasn't quite pavement-pizza, two-day-hangover, hey-who-turned-out-the-lights-_oh-my-God-I'm-blind_ drunk, but he was feeling pretty fucking chilled out about everything. At that particular moment, he was leaning heavily on Token and playing with his earlobe.

It was a truly _lovely_ earlobe and he wondered how he had never noticed it before.

Token, unfortunately for Craig, was more or less sober, and had very little desire that evening to have his earlobes played with by a staggering idiot. Firmly but politely, Token turned him around and pushed him in the direction of Clyde, who was gracious enough to catch him before he face planted into Wendy's stomach.

"Oh my God," he heard her laugh. "How much has he had?"

Craig decided he was going to let Wendy have what-for for that comment, because he was _perfectly fine, thank you very much_. But as soon as he stood up, he noticed Clyde.

Well, he'd known Clyde was there before, but now he really _noticed_ him.

"Clyde!" he exclaimed. This was fantastic. "Jelly donuts!"

He saw Wendy and Clyde exchange glances.

"Don't do that," Craig said, petulantly. "Please. I can see you looking. I can see you _judging_."

Clyde laughed. Clyde's laugh was almost as nice as Token's earlobes. Wendy laughed, too, but her laugh was kind of grating and girly. God, girls were _annoying_. He didn't know why Clyde and all the others were always talking about them.

"How did you get here, buddy?" Clyde asked.

"Um...Token. Because you _bailed._" He jabbed an accusatory finger at his chest.

Clyde put his hands on Craig's shoulders gently. It was pretty patronising, Craig thought, but it was Clyde and Clyde was awesome so he didn't mind so much. "Dude, I had to pick up Wendy. She couldn't get here otherwise."

Craig had a sneaking suspicion that this wasn't necessarily true. But Clyde was giving him a Significant Look and tilting his head to indicate that Craig should piss the fuck off. Clyde liked Wendy, he remembered distantly, and here he was hanging out with her at a party, that if he recalled what Clyde had told him earlier in their hasty phonecall, she'd more or less come to just for him.

_Good for him!_ Craig thought, suddenly ecstatic for his best friend. _He_ didn't get the appeal of girls, but Clyde sure as hell did, so if Clyde was gonna get lucky, _good for him!_

With what he hoped was a discreet wink, he sloped off into the crowds. He had long since undone the top four or five buttons of his shirt, and pushed the sleeves way up above his elbows. Bebe's living room was warm, and he raised his hand to take off his hat, only to find it was missing. Surprised, he glanced around the floor at his feet, trying to see if he'd dropped it. It wasn't there.

"Token!" he said, when he'd retraced his seats back to his friend's chair, and still not found his hat. "Did I have my hat on when I saw you?"

Token stared at him. "I don't think so," he said, after a moment. "Though I'll admit I was a little more preoccupied with you fondling my ear than I was with checking out your headgear."

"Oh, right." Craig frowned. Where the _fuck_ was his hat?

He found himself headed for the kitchen, checking under chairs as he went. He stood up when he reached Bebe's kitchen counter, and turned around, only to knock foreheads with someone who had apparently just come up behind him.

"Ow!"

"Shit!"

"Craig?"

Craig blinked. "Kenny?"

The boy he'd bumped into had his hand to his head, but the messy mop of blond hair was unmistakeable. "Dude. I didn't recognise you without your hat," Kenny said.

Craig sighed. "I've lost it."

Kenny pointed. "Isn't that it?"

Turning around, Craig saw his hat perched on top of an empty bottle of vodka. Something was written on the bottle in black marker.

_Craig – don't touch my ears ever again. Token._

"Token's a bastard," he said morosely, jamming his hat back onto his head.

Kenny patted him on the shoulder. "Don't touch his ears," he advised.

"I want a drink."

Grinning, Kenny said, "Why do you think _I _was coming in here? I just got here with the fatass and I'm gasping."

"You're not drinking yet?" Craig was aghast. "Ken, you know what this means, right?"

Kenny's expression turned suspicious. "What?"

"_Dirty pint, motherfucker."_ Enthused, Craig scrambled for a glass. "Oh my God, wait, Cartman's not been drinking either, has he?"

"No, we came here on our bikes, so we –"

"_Two dirty pints."_ Awkwardly, he grabbed another glass. It slipped out of his fingers, and Kenny darted forward to grab it. "Thanks, man."

"I don't want a dirty pint," Kenny told him.

"You made me be in the play. You're taking the dirty pint." Craig turned towards the stack of alcohol in the corner. He grabbed a selection of bottles and cans and turned back to the glasses, a demonic glint in his eye. "You're getting _trashed_," he promised, cracking open a can of beer and pouring a sloppy half into each glass. He topped each up with a slug of vodka and something that smelt distinctly like absinthe, and then filled the glasses to the brim with red wine.

"I'm not drinking it," Kenny told him.

"If Cartman does, you have to. Let's go find him." Craig picked up the glasses, but Kenny quickly took them off him.

"You'll make no friends if you drop those on people, Craig," he warned, carrying them carefully towards the door. "I left him with Kyle. He's probably still there. You know how those two are."

Craig trailed after Kenny, checking his hat was still in place every few seconds. As they passed Token, the other boy gave him a self-satisfied grin, and Craig flipped him off. They did indeed find Cartman with Kyle – the two were facing off with identical furious expressions. Stan was slumped against the wall behind them, looking bored. He seemed to perk up when he saw Craig and Kenny.

"Kenny!" he said brightly. "'S'happening, dude?"

"Dirty pints," Kenny grimaced.

"Morals, Kyle? Your people are shifty and vicious and manipulate the world's economy for their own greedy goals!"

"Wanna talk about greedy, fatass?"

"'Ey! I'll kill you, Kyle!"

"How, by sitting on me? Jesus Christ, no one deserves that!"

"Make them stop," Stan asked politely. "Please. You know what Kyle's like when he starts drinking."

Kenny grinned. "_Tenacious_, if I remember correctly."

Stan nodded. "Give them the pints. They will pass out. There will be silence. It will be glorious."

"No!" Craig interrupted. "They're for Kenny and Cartman because they haven't had a drink yet! _Everyone must be drunk_."

Stan stared at him.

"I think he's an emotional drunk," Kenny tried to explain.

"I am not!"

Kyle looked up then. "Hey again, Ken. Where'd you go?"

He brandished the pint glasses. "Craig's idea. Here you go, bucket-ass. Drink up."

Cartman took the pint glass automatically, and then actually looked at the contents. "The fuck?"

"Drink it," Craig told him. "If you will, then Kenny will, and Kenny has to drink it!"

Cartman gave him a weird look, and leant over to Kenny. "What the hell is up with Tucker?"

"It's part of my ongoing punishment," Kenny replied.

"Damn straight." Craig elbowed him in the ribs. "Drink!"

"Hey, you said I only had to if Cartman did."

Cartman snorted. "I'm not touching this shit."

Kyle laughed, and kicked Cartman in the back of the leg. Some of the contents of the glass slopped out over his hand and sleeve. "Of course Cartman's not gonna drink it. He'd puke everywhere after one sip!"

Cartman whirled on him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've got an even weaker stomach than Stan, Cartman! Not that you'd tell from the _size _of it –"

"Fuck you, Kyle!" And Cartman raised the glass and started to drink.

Craig cheered and forced Kenny's glass to his lips. "Whoooo! Come on, Bianca, you promised!"

Kenny spluttered into the first mouthful of the concoction and pushed Craig's hand away. "Jesus Christ, are you trying to drown me?"

"_Drink, you son of a bitch."_

Grimacing, Kenny raised the glass again and started to drink. Craig clapped him on the back triumphantly, watching as more and more of the powerful mixture disappeared.

To his credit, Kenny actually finished the pint. Cartman, on the other hand, had pushed his away half finished, and had gone quite green. He gagged into the palm of his hand.

"What sort of shit is _in_ there?" he gasped.

"You don't wanna know," Kenny assured him, reaching for what was left of his pint.

Cartman snatched it up before he could get to it. "Fuck you, I'm finishing it."

Suddenly, Bebe appeared behind him. "_No_ you're not." She grabbed the glass out his hand. "You look ill enough. I'm not having you vomiting in here, Cartman. If you do, I'll rub your face in it like a god damn puppy, so help me God."

"Bebe, you bitch! Give that back!"

Bebe simply turned and walked away, casting one last, dirty look over her shoulder. "I told you no dirty pints, Craig."

Kenny turned to him. "Dude, she _told_ you?"

Craig shrugged. "Well she told me not to so obviously I had to." He paused, and then a lightbulb came on in his head. "Oh my God, _best idea ever_. Come on."

He grabbed Kenny's wrist and pulled him away. Kenny sounded like he was bidding a hurried farewell to his friends, but Craig was more intent on finding Token. He was, luckily, still sat in the same seat as he had been for most of the evening. Bebe had gravitated over towards him, the remainder of Cartman's pint somehow already disposed of. Shit, her hosting skills were like magic or something.

"Token! Gimme your keys!"

Token looked at him as if he'd grown another head. "Yeah. That's going to happen."

Craig waved his hands frantically, releasing Kenny's wrist. "No, no, seriously, I need my bag out of your car. It's _important_."

Grudgingly, Token dug in his pockets. He tossed the keys over Craig's shoulder to Kenny, who caught them deftly. "I'll come for you if anything happens, McCormick."

"He has no idea I'm about to get really, really drunk, does he?" Kenny said quietly, once they'd turned away and were headed for the front door. Craig snickered.

The change in temperature from the hazy heat of the house to the shuddering cold of the snow outside was extreme. Craig stopped short, and let out a loud, _"Ahhhh!"_

Kenny braced himself on the door frame. "Jesus," he said, burying a hand in his hair. "I think the air's just activated that pint."

"Quick, quick," Craig hurried him, hopping on the spot. "Get my bag before your head gets messed up and you screw with Token's car."

Kenny made a dash towards the smartest car parked outside Bebe's house, and opened the trunk. "Which one's yours?"

"Red one!" Craig called back, half-sheltered in the doorway, sucking up the warmth from inside. Someone was yelling at him to shut the door but he ignored them. "Black straps!"

Kenny held one up. "Yeah? Fuck me, that's heavy." He closed and locked Token's trunk again, trudging back to the house.

Craig grabbed the bag off him. "Meet me out the back," he said, winking, and slipped away, heading round the side of the house. He reached the garden and sat down out of sight of the back doors, undoing the clasps on his bag. He pulled out the goods he'd been hiding all day, and took a long, cold breath of mountain air.

This was an awesome plan.

Kenny appeared a little while later, looking decidedly red-cheeked. "Dude. _Dude_. Bebe made me do shots. _Straight vodka shots_. Why's she so meeeean?" He squinted as he reached Craig. "Issat...is that _paint_?"

Craig grinned up at him and patted the concrete next to him. Kenny dropped down to sit beside him. "Yup," he said, proudly. "All the stuff we didn't use when we fucked up Delancey's office."

"Why do you have it here?"

"Because," Craig said, seriously, "we're going to _paint one of Bebe's trees_."

Kenny's jaw dropped. "No. She'll _actually _kill us."

Craig laid a heavy, manly hand on his shoulder. "Kenny McCormick. Are you, or are you not, afraid of death?"

"Well, I'm not," Kenny said. "But shit, Craig, _you_ won't come back!"

Craig shrugged. "Never tested it yet."

Kenny stared at him for a long moment, and then he laughed. "Know what? Why the hell not! I could use a bit of Barbie Rage after this week."

Grinning like a Cheshire Cat, Craig popped the lid of the two tins and handed Kenny one of the paint-stained brushes. "After you, _mon amis_."

They stood up in unison, holding one can of paint each. They exchanged a final, wicked look, and set to work.

* * *

Cartman was usually pissed off when he was around Kyle Broflovski, unless he was gloating. And he wasn't gloating tonight, because he was sick to his stomach from that _shit_ Kenny'd made him drink, and his head was spinning, and _Kyle_ was sitting there looking _perfectly fine_.

"I hate you, you fag."

It didn't much fit in with the line their argument had been taking, but not much of what he'd said in the last ten minutes tied much to anything else. He'd never admit it so long as he could draw a breath of God's sweet air, but the Jewish bastard was right – size notwithstanding, Cartman was a fucking _lightweight_. And Kyle, the skinny little shit, could put it away like it was spring water or some crap.

He wasn't totally out of it, not yet, but Jesus if his tongue wasn't slipping up just a little _too_ much when he tried to put his sentences together. The fight in him was flaring but his argument was getting more and more disconnected and less and less valid.

Kenny'd been wrong about this party, it was _shit_. He'd bollocksed off somewhere with Tucker the Fucker and showed no intention of returning. He was tempted to just piss off home, but even _he_ wasn't quite shit-brained enough to think hopping on a motorcycle right now was a stunning idea.

Jesus Christ, he should have just stayed home tonight. Kenny could've come out to this party and bummed around with Kyle and Stan and Craig – _seriously? _he thought, _Craig? What the fuck?_ – and he could have just crashed in front of the television or something. Hell, Wendy'd said she was staying in tonight. Maybe she'd have gotten bored and called him. Maybe it'd be around midnight and she'd be sounding pretty sleepy, but he'd pick up the phone and she'd just say she was _thinking about him_ and that maybe _she missed him_, and he could, you know, come over for a bit if he wanted.

And then maybe one thing would lead to another, and –

"Shut _up_!" a girly voice said, from somewhere near the stairs. Shit, he was even imagining her voice now. He needed a fucking exorcism or something, for seriously.

"No, I'm totally serious, Wendy!" came a male voice.

He looked up. Now, hell, he wasn't imagining _that_.

And there she was. With her back to the banister of the stairs, looking the smallest bit flustered, the slightest bit buzzed, blushing and smiling and talking to that asshole Clyde. Clyde had his hand against the banister next to her and was leaning in pretty close, and he had a fucking can of Coke in his hands, of all things, like some wholesome dickhole who doesn't drink because it's _against the law_.

There. She. Fucking. Was.

Staying in, his ass. Too tired, his ass. Just wanted a quiet night alone, his fucking white _ass_.

He wasn't an angry drunk. Fuck's sake, he wasn't even totally _pissed_ yet, but Christ, it took less than this to set him off sober. She'd _lied_ to him. Blown him off so she could make eyes at _Clyde fucking Donovan._ Of all the fucking crapsacks in the world, of all the assholes he's been keeping tabs on and watching and _planning_ against, she's there swaying under the gaze of one of the _only_ guys he hadn't fucking given a second thought.

Fucking Clyde.

Eyes narrowed, fists clenched, he made his way over to the pair.

She'd lied to him.

His brain just a little disengaged, his vision just a little slow to switch focus, the one thing he was holding onto was _she'd lied to him_.

For _Clyde_.

He'd reached them now, and yep, they'd noticed him. Clyde was giving him some casual dickheaded greeting, and he shoved him aside. Wendy stayed frozen in place, staring up at him with some mix of surprise and confusion. But then her eyes fell back on Clyde, who'd fallen roughly against the wall next to them, and something in her expression switched to apprehension.

He placed his hands flat either side of her, blocking her in, towering over her. He stared down at her with slitted eyes, and breathed, "Hey, _ho_."

* * *

Bebe's garden was a disaster zone.

The longer they'd spent outside, the less Kenny had found he'd felt the cold, and the more light headed he'd felt. Their paint job had been haphazard at best, with the trees subjected to random, angry splashes of pink and blue. About halfway through their dedicated effort on the large oak tree at the back of the garden, Craig had stepped backwards to admire their word. His foot had knocked heavily against the pink paint pot, sending it toppling over. There was now a large pink patch at the foot of the tree, and they'd had to carry on in blue from then on.

Kenny ran a hand across his forehead. He was a little heated from the effort, and he could feel a flush in his cheeks. His head was spinning from the paint fumes and the alcohol. Craig sloped over, and slung his arm around Kenny's shoulders. He grinned at him. Craig's cheeks looked flushed, too, and he was clearly still as rat-assed as he'd been inside.

_Maybe more,_ Kenny thought, as Craig dropped his head onto his shoulder.

"This is awesome," Craig said. "Bebe's gonna go fucking crazy."

Kenny couldn't help but grin as well. Bebe was cool, in her own way, but her rages were legendary. She'd never had the same cold, focused vengefulness as Wendy did, always ending up instead on a Barbara Streisand-style rampage for as long as it took for her energy to run out, or an authority figure to arrive.

"She's probably gonna chuck us out," Kenny warned.

"She's probably gonna _kill_ us," Craig laughed, and pulled Kenny closer. To his very great surprise, Kenny found he didn't mind. Being close to Craig was kind of cool. Craig was a pretty awesome guy, at heart – he wasn't afraid to piss people off, he wasn't afraid to take the rap for shit he did. Unlike Cartman, Kenny thought, who always tried to shove the blame onto _him_ when things went tits up. Kenny knew that when Bebe came out, her eyes wide in disbelief and her fists clenched, Craig would be there right alongside him, pissing himself laughing and ready to face the music.

It was kinda nice, really. Almost like – well, almost like having someone _there_ for you.

_A partner in crime_, Kenny thought, and on a whim he reached up and ruffled Craig's hair. His hat had fallen off sometime around the pink paint spillage, and Kenny wondered why he bothered wearing that thing to parties at all. It was tattered and old and threadbare, but so intrinsically _Craig_ that maybe no one would even recognise him without it.

Craig knocked his hand aside, still smiling. "Fuck off, McCormick. Shit, where's my hat gone now?"

Breaking away, Kenny jogged over to their last pink tree. Craig's hat was suspended on a low hanging branch, and Kenny reached out to grab it. He turned to brandish it in triumph, and just as he did, his foot landed on the still-wet patch of pink.

"Waugh – _ow!_"

Kenny slipped, falling backwards against the tree. His head knocked, hard, against the trunk, and he just _knew_ he was going to come away with pink stained all down his back and hair.

_So much for plausible deniability._

"Kenny, shit!" Craig was jogging towards him. He was laughing, but there was weird flicker of concern in his eyes. "You alright? You dickshit!"

"Fuck off, Craig," Kenny said, tossing his hat at him. Fumblingly, Craig caught it, and then carried on towards Kenny.

"Lemme look at your head."

"Why?" Kenny scoffed. "You're pissed and about as medically competent as a retarded monkey."

"I wanna _see_." Craig pushed his head down, running his fingers through Kenny's rough hair. "Does it hurt?"

Kenny half-heartedly pushed him away, but Craig came back, resolutely thumbing through his hair again. "No," he said sarcastically. "Clocking myself on trees _gets me off_."

"Who knows with you, McCormick."

Kenny elbowed him in the side. Craig responded by slapping the back of his head.

"Tucker, you little shit! Ow, fucking _ow_ you asshole!" Kenny shoved him away, snatching back the hat. "What was that for?"

"Hey!" Craig lunged for his hat. Kenny sidestepped, and Craig lost his balance a little, his forehead knocking against the tree. Kenny snickered.

"Serves you right, douchebag."

Recovering himself, Craig scowled at him, rubbing his head. "Fine. Deserved that. Hat back now."

Kenny responded by shoving it on his own head. "Reckon everyone would believe I'm you now?"

"_Hat back now_."

Tugging the hat down further, Kenny gave Craig a wicked look. "Gonna make me, Tucker?"

He darted out of the way as Craig stepped away from the tree towards him. Still scowling, Craig lurched forward, flailing a little. _Like hell_, Kenny thought, hopping backwards. He whipped the hat off and dangled it in front of Craig's face. Craig growled, but there was a smile under his scowl now.

"I'm gonna fucking get you, Kenny!" Craig wheeled round abruptly as Kenny dodged yet again, his fingers catching the edge of his hat. Kenny realised too late that Craig had tightened his hold, and as he tried to jump to the side, Craig yanked sharply and sent Kenny tumbling to the ground.

"Jesus Christ!" Kenny shouted, his legs giving away underneath him, as he toppled face first into the damp, lightly snow-dusted grass. "Ugh...Ow!"

A weight suddenly dropped onto Kenny's shoulders. Twisting his head, he looked up and saw Craig perched there, his hat back on his head, and a shit-eating grin plastered across his face. "Well, well, well," he said smugly. "How d'you like me now, motherfucker?"

Kenny grunted into the grass. He could feel the moisture seeping up into his clothes. Wet on one side, pink on the other, Jesus, he was gonna look a total state when he got back inside.

"Don't fuck with the Tuck," Craig said. He didn't seem inclined to move anytime soon.

"Gerrof," Kenny groaned, trying to push himself up and shift Craig off his shoulders. It wasn't working. "Crap, Craig, you weigh almost as much as the fatass does."

"Like hell I do." Craig shifted, bringing his knee sharply against the side of Kenny's head.

"Seriously, get off me."

"Nah," he said. "I'm okay here actually. Comfortable, to be honest."

Kenny snorted. "You're comfortable with your crotch in my neck? You fucking fag, Craig."

"Maybe."

Halfway through another concerted effort to push himself up off the ground, Kenny stopped. "Huh?"

On top of him, Craig shrugged. "I dunno, you know? I've been thinking about that weird-ass chat we had, you know, that night at Cartman's?"

Kenny frowned up at him. "What?"

"You were pretty trashed. But we had this, like, talk. About girls and shit, and maybe not liking girls. And you said how maybe people should, you know, experiment or something, and yeah, I've been thinking about it."

"The fuck, Craig?" Kenny's jaw had gone slack. Was Craig...coming out to him? "Are you gay?"

Craig shrugged. "I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out."

"Is that why you're straddling me?"

"No, that was because I wanted my hat back. Don't fuck with my hat, Kenny. Seriously."

"...I can't really breathe."

Kenny felt Craig's weight leave his back, and a rush of air as the other boy flopped down onto the grass next to him. He didn't know if he'd ever been this close to Craig before. At this distance and at this angle, he could see everything about him in clear detail, from the pale grey of his eyelashes to the pinched bridge of his nose. His hair was growing out, a darker, smoother black than Stan's, hanging over his eyes.

There was still a haze of booze hanging of Kenny's mind, and he had a strong suspicion it was colouring his reaction with a lot more placidity. Come to think of it, did it _matter_ if it turned out Craig was gay?

It would hardly make him any less badass. The only way Craig being gay would make anything turn out different, Kenny figured, was if Craig got sprung for _him_.

Suddenly, Craig laughed. "Damn, Bebe's gonna flip. I just realised we totally got blue paint all over her mom's rose garden."

Kenny tried to turn his head far enough to see, but he couldn't. He was getting quite comfortable, lying here on the grass, in the snow and the smell of paint.

With Craig.

He lowered his head, and found that Craig had turned on his side to look at him. He was wearing an odd expression, all mild confusion and contemplation and determination.

"I'm gonna do it, I think," he said.

"Do what?"

"Experiment." And before Kenny could react, Craig had shifted forward. Kenny felt Craig's hand wind into his hair and turn his face up, and before he could think or say _anything_, he felt Craig's mouth press against his.

Kenny's first sensation of kissing another guy was how weird it was. Craig wasn't at all as delicate as a girl was – his jaw was rough and square and his lips didn't feel soft and supple at all. They just felt like lips. The hand in his hair felt distinctly like a boy's hand, hard-skinned and clumsy, and there was something awkward about the way Craig's face bumped against his.

His second sensation was that it really wasn't as weird as it ought to be.

In fact, it wasn't even weird at all.

Actually, it felt sort of – well, it felt almost – God, he knew it was Craig, but...maybe that was _why_, and...

Why hadn't he ever _thought_ -?

At that precise moment, a loud female voice split the air.

"_Well maybe if you weren't so overbearingly BASTARDLY I wouldn't _have_ to lie!"_

They jerked apart. Kenny caught a split second glance at the look on Craig's face, but couldn't work it out, before he had scrambled hastily to his feet.

"Aw, shitting dick nipples." This _couldn't_ be good.

Craig had stood up, too. "Was that Wendy?"

Kenny looked mournfully at Bebe's house. "Yep," he said. "Which means we're about ready for –"

"_I don't know what the fuck your concept of 'friends' consists of, bitch, but if you got a problem you're supposed to say shit!"_

"- that," he finished, grimacing, as Cartman's voice echoed form inside.

"Fighting _again_?"

Kenny sighed, brushing some grass of his front. Nothing to do but go in and try to break it up. As usual. "_This_ is why we don't go to nice places together," he muttered, heading for the back doors.

Inside, the fight was in full force. The music had been shut off and everyone had dropped what they'd been doing, forming a silent ring around Wendy and Cartman. The two of them were facing off, clench-fisted and red-cheeked. Kenny was willing to bet both of them were at least a little bit over their respective alcohol limits, because they hadn't had a blow out this big in _weeks_.

"As if you'd know anything about friendship, you fat piece of shit!" Wendy shouted, jabbing her finger into Cartman's broad chest. "As if you'd know anything about _caring_ about other people!"

"A fuck lot more than you!" Cartman shot back. He was clearly just as worked up; the anger was coming off him in waves. "All you ever use your _friends_ for is to help you with your fucked up causes!"

"_Fucked up_? Fighting for people who can't fight for themselves is fucked up? Well, I guess it must be to _you_, the guy who thinks it's perfectly normal to try to _completely control_ every single fucking _aspect_ of people's lives!"

"Jesus Christ, you stupid ho! You think I give enough of a shit to try to control your life?"

"Cartman – you just told me I had no right to be here without your permission!" she shrieked. "You actually said _permission_! And don't deny it, everyone heard you!"

"Of course, you _would_ expect everyone to take your side, wouldn't you? Perfect little Wendy, _leading lady _Wendy, star pupil Wendy –"

"So, what? Because I actually give two shits about the things going on in my life –"

"Oh, obviously I _completely_ care enough about your dumb ass life to judge it. Shit, Wendy, get the fuck off your high horse and realise that I'm _not_ buying into your little act."

"Act?" Wendy was becoming more and more hysterical. Kenny found himself noticing certain tells about her, like the way she kept sweeping her hair back, and the way she _wasn't_ narrowing her eyes – Wendy was a predictable kind of person, and _these_ were the motions Kenny'd long since learnt to look out for. It meant she was verging on the edge of diving in the deep end: Wendy wasn't going to be pulling any punches. "_Act?_ Cartman, there is no _act_! And don't _stand_ there and say you don't give a crap about my life, because you do – I _know_ you do, _everyone_ knows you do! Jesus, do you think it isn't _obvious_?"

"Fuck are you talking about, ho?" Cartman said, but there was an edge of panic bruising the sides of his voice that Kenny knew he wasn't going to be the only one to pick up on.

"For Christ's sake, Cartman!" Wendy was starting to sound desperate, exasperated. "I'm talking about all the rumours _you_ keep pointing out! Do you know _why_ people think we're together?"

Cartman's eyes left Wendy's face for maybe a fraction of a second, and met Kenny's. There was suspicion in his stare, heavy and dark, and Kenny knew exactly why. He was the _only_ person Cartman had told. He was the _only_ person who'd have been able to tell her. Fuck the fact that he _hadn't_, that Wendy was angry and upset and running off fumes and theories, fuck _all_ of that, because that wasn't how Eric Cartman's mind worked.

"Because you're a fucking whore! Because you'd fuck anything, even me!"

_Even me_ hit Kenny's ears harder than anything else. _Even me. Even me. Even me_.

Cartman was losing it. He was breaking down, and if someone didn't stop this _soon_ –

Wendy slapped him, hard, across the face, and he reeled backwards. With a storm in her eyes, she shouted, "It's because of you, asshole! You're _always around_! I can't get rid of you! You get angry when I talk to other guys! You fuck with people just because you think they might like me! All becaue _you –_"

Wendy didn't finish her sentence, because at that exact moment, Kenny McCormick had decided enough was enough. Psychotic drunkards or not, they were his best friends, and so help them, _something_ in the sober part of Kenny's mind was telling him these two could actually make something of it. Charging forward through the crowd, he did the first thing he could think of, and threw Wendy onto his shoulder.

"Bye everyone!" he called out, flashing a winning smile. A couple of jaws dropped as he headed for the front door, but Bebe (_bless her_, he thought_, bless her from her frizzy blonde hair to her perfect boobs. Bless you, Bebe Stevens_) pulled a couple of the onlookers aside and opened the door for him to pass.

"I'll drive," she muttered, following him out.

"Put me down!" Wendy screamed, as Bebe pulled her front door shut. "Kenny, for Christ's sake, I will _kill_ you if you don't –"

He set her on her feet as gently and as stably as he could, and the first thing she did was shove him backwards.

"Don't you _ever_ do that again!"

Bebe grabbed her should. "Okay, calm the hell down," she said severely.

"No!"

"I say _yes_, Wendy. Take a deep fucking breath because Jesus, you are making one hell of a scene and we probably have about five minutes before the police are called and _my parents will kill me_."

"Bebe!" Wendy protested, but her voice had dropped. "You heard what he said! He insulted me! He insulted _you_!"

"Yes, and _I'm _rising above it. Look, he's an ass, and you've been drinking, and he's –"

" – And he's coming this way," Kenny interrupted.

Cartman had followed him out the door. A few other people were gathered in the doorway, reluctant to step out into the cold, and Bebe darted back to shut the door. This time, she locked it.

"What the fuck was that, Kenny?" Cartman's face was darkened with anger, and he wasn't looking at Wendy. "What the _fuck_ was that?"

Kenny put his hands on his head. "Look, you two were getting out of hand, and I'm not dumb enough to think normal intervention can stop you when you get started."

"Yeah?" Cartman rounded on him, putting a threatening hand on his shoulder. "What the hell were you doing, interfering with something that wasn't _any_ of your business?"

"Wasn't any of his business?" Bebe cut across, pushing Cartman's hand away and stepping between him and Kenny. "You two were making whatever was going on in there _everybody's _business!"

"He started it!" Wendy objected. "He _pushed_ Clyde into a wall, told me I wasn't allowed to have come out -!

"You fucking lied!" Cartman said, looking at her at last. "Too fucking tired, you said!"

"I don't belong to you, Cartman, no matter how many times you might imagine I do when you're –"

"I kissed Craig," Kenny blurted out.

It was the only thing he could think of to say that would stop the fight from escalating again – the _only_ thing present in his mind that could possibly be of any use, so he just said it. And sure enough, both Wendy and Cartman stopped in their tracks and turned to stare at him.

"What?" Bebe said. "Craig?"

Wendy looked shocked. "When? Tonight? Kenny, are you –"

"_Fag."_

Something in Kenny's stomach turned horribly cold. Cartman was looking at him with slitted eyes, his lip curled in contemptuous disgust.

"Fag," he said again, and his voice was low and dangerous and hateful. "So one of my friend is a cheap, lying whore, and the other one's a no good, deviant, fudge packing _faggot_."

That was the point where everything started to get blurry.

Wendy had started shouting something again, and Bebe had joined in, this time. The cold feeling in Kenny's stomach was spreading through him, hurried on by the sheer look of undisguised hatred on Cartman's face.

His best friend.

His best friend was ready to throw him away because of _one kiss._

"Fuck you," he said, feeling numb. "Fuck you, Cartman."

Reacting more than deciding, Kenny stepped forward and punched him in the face.

Cartman staggered, but as soon as he caught himself his hands found Kenny. He was stronger – much stronger – and powered by his rage. Kenny found himself hitting the ground for the second time that night, and he felt something in his ankle twist.

Wendy and Bebe were shouting his name, and then Wendy was turning on Cartman, and there was this _look_ in his eyes, this look of pain and abandonment and horror at everything that was happened –

- and Kenny didn't care.

Cartman could go to hell.

"Cartman, _stop_!"

Huh?

Kenny looked up. Bebe was on her knees next to him, trying to check if he was alright, but Wendy was standing by Cartman, her hands wrapped round one of his big arms, as he tried to shake her off.

"Screw you, bitch. I'm getting out of here."

"You're drunk!" she shouted. "Cartman, you idiot! You're going to hurt yourself! _Stop!_"

He gave her a long, steady look. "Like you give a shit about me."

"Eric –"

She was cut off by the roaring of Cartman's motorcycle's engine coming to life. Her last cry rose piercingly above the rumble as he pulled out of Bebe's drive, picking up speed, and rounding a breakneck corner out of sight.

Silence rushed back around them, and there was only the cold of the air and the crisp wetness of the snow, and the shattered shards of friendship.


	7. Break A Leg

Disclaimer: Yeah still don't own. Lyrics lines: 'Pushing the Senses', Feeder.

Note: Ugh. I feel like the last chapter went so well and here it's just...it feels like the only one vaguely in character is Clyde. By the way, yes, Bebe is obscenely hardcore here, and yes, I actually do have reasons for why she can lift a teenage boy like he's a handbag. I hope this isn't truly awful, or a let down from the semi-explosive finish of the last chapter. There's a hell of a lot of hand holding in this chapter. Just so you're warned.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank the people who are reviewing this. I know I've like, replied to you all and everything, but...seriously, you guys. You're the best group of reviewers I've ever had. YOU are what makes this story keep going – having you guys respond in so much detail to what I'm writing is making me update way quicker than normal. Thank you so, so much.

Anyway, onwards.

x

**Chapter Seven  
Break A Leg**

_feelings you never knew  
pulling you under now  
you're fighting the undertow  
before it sucks you down_

* * *

"He's an _idiot_!"

"Wendy, calm down!"

"He's going to get himself hurt. He's going to get himself _killed_! You saw him – he was drunk, he was angry – Cartman's going to _kill_ himself!"

Wendy was on the verge of breaking into full hysterics. Kenny was watching her from the ground, where Cartman had throw him before taking off. She was probably right. Cartman was in serious danger, driving around like a mad man like that, and their bikes had never been exactly _safe_, either. Bebe had Wendy by the shoulders, shaking her gently, trying to get her to make eye contact or take deep breaths. She'd picked up a lot of tips over the years for calming down her histrionic friend.

Kenny, on the other hand, was finding himself remarkably serene about the whole thing. There was still a heady fuzziness floating over his brain, and his fingers were going numb where they were splayed against the snow. The night was replaying itself in his head like an old cinema reel, like what he saw when he was dying. He thought it would be pretty ridiculous if he was dying just from this.

It just sort of felt like it.

It kinda felt like that time when he was thirteen, though, when his stomach started feeling all light and unsettled, and then he puked for eight hours straight before passing out and waking up in Hell. It was the first time he'd died and come back to find that Stan and Kyle hadn't noticed he'd been gone. He'd woken up in a fresh sweat, and found Cartman sat at the bottom of his bed. He'd smiled his infamous 'I have a plan' smile, and Kenny'd realised, for the first time, what it genuinely meant to have a best friend.

_Fag_.

It was the _bitterness_ in Cartman's tone that was still ringing in his ears – the instinctive, blinding hate that had just burst out of him as soon as Kenny'd so much as _mentioned_ something that didn't sit inside his fucked-up Aryan world view. But all things considered, Kenny supposed that if he'd sat down and thought about it, Cartman's reaction would have been completely expected.

But Kenny _hadn't_ thought about it. Kenny hadn't ever even thought about _guys_ that way.

Until now. Until Craig.

God damn him. Everything had been so simple this morning, before the party. Before Craig, and Wendy, and before _Cartman_.

"Kenny? Kenny, are you alright?"

He looked up. Bebe was back on her knees next to him, shivering in the cold. She had one hand against the back of his head, and she seemed to be checking for bumps or bruises.

"I'm okay," he said, thickly.

"You took a fucking tumble, Ken." She was frowning worriedly. "But if you're okay, get up. You have to come with us to look for Cartman."

Kenny stared at her. "What?"

"Wendy's _really_ worried," Bebe said, dropping her voice. "She's full on freaking out. I've shoved her in my jeep, but Kenny, if I don't take her out to look for him, she's gonna flip and run out there herself. She's drunk, she's in heels, it's _one in the morning_. I'm not letting her –"

"That's got nothing to do with me."

Bebe blinked. "Wha -? Of course it does. Your friend's involved."

"Cartman's not my _friend_," Kenny spat.

An odd look of compassion flashed across Bebe's face, and she dropped her hand to squeeze his shoulder. "Wendy is."

Kenny drew a breath. "...Yeah, Wendy is."

"So then..."

"No." Kenny drew his knees up to his chest, shuddering suddenly, _just_ noticing how numb his hands had gotten. "I'm not going after him. He can fucking crash and die for all I care."

Bebe stared at him levelly. "Cartman's done worse things than call you a fag."

"Not to _me_."

"Okay." She stood up, brushing the snow off her lace-patterned tights. "Okay, fine. He's an unbelievable bastard, fuck him. Now get off your ass and into my car."

Kenny looked up at her incredulously. "_No,_" he said again, unsure whether she was understanding him.

"Yeah, I _get_ it, Kenny. I also don't care. Get in my car or I swear to God, I will pick you up and put you there."

He snorted. His drunken, detached amusement at the idea of spindly little Bebe hauling him to her car lasted for all of the six seconds it took her to brace herself and do just that. He found himself lifted suddenly from the ground, the world spinning around him, and heard shoes on snow and the clunky opening of Bebe's jeep's door, before he landed on the sleek leather seats. Bebe slammed the door triumphantly. Wendy, sat in the passenger's seat, squirmed round to look at him, and Kenny suddenly felt a pang in his stomach.

She looked _awful_. There was an abject kind of panic in her eyes that he'd never seen before, not when she'd been late to hand in homework, not when she'd missed a crucial test in Spanish, _never_. She was shaking and pale, and –

- and _Wendy's_ first reaction had been to drop everything and focus on _him_. And he'd been the one that pressured Cartman into coming to the party, brought him right to where Wendy was, _started_ all this trouble in the first place.

Cartman was a festering dickwad who could die in a fire, and Kenny'd be happy to set that fire himself. But the look on Wendy's face right now reminded him she hadn't done anything wrong but go to a fucking party, and she was still his friend.

His _best_ friend.

"We'll find him," Kenny told her, as Bebe climbed into the driver's seat. He tried to sound reassuring, tried to pretend he was talking about Stan or Kyle or Craig. "We'll get there before he can hurt himself."

The car journey was silent and tense. Bebe focused on the road, and her expression was fixed and steady in profile, the dim lights that bounced off the road glinting against her earrings. Wendy was huddled in against herself, shaking and looking distraught, and inevitably blaming herself.

_That's why I'm doing this,_ he told himself, as the lights of the town fell further and further behind. _I can't lose two friends tonight._

Kenny was finding that it was becoming easier and easier to connect his thoughts. He drew a deep breath of warm, recycled heater-air, and closed his eyes. For the first time since running in on Wendy and Cartman's fight – Christ, had it really only been ten minutes ago? – he let himself feel what it was that he'd been keeping iced over and calm in the pit of his stomach.

The moment he relaxed into it, the first thing he felt was _betrayal_. Under that, sick and boiling, was anger – anger at Cartman, for treating people the way he did, for treating_ him_ that way when he wasn't just some other schmuck in the hallways. And anger at the fact that everything, _everything_, about questioning his sexuality, about remembering tonight, about thinking about Craig, was going to be hideously eclipsed by the deep hurt of Cartman's words.

The last feeling that hit him was that he didn't want to be here.

His phone buzzed. In amongst the low rumble of the engine and the sound of tires on grit roads, he wouldn't have heard it, if he hadn't been so desperately wishing something would happen to make him think about anywhere but here.

10/11/2010 1:25  
Craig  
K, where'd u go Big comotion here.

Kenny stared down at his phone, a tangle of things unwinding themselves in his head. The surreal light from the screen was lurid in the dark of the car, and he jumped when it buzzed again.

10/11/2010 01:27  
Craig  
sorry if i pissed u off

He replied quickly to that one.

10/11/2010 01:30  
Kenny  
Dude u didnt piss me of : ) we should hang tmz, L4D + pizza?

10/11/2010 01:32  
Craig  
Sure man, soumdds gd. Ken what the fubk was te scene w wedy & cman?

10/11/2010 01:34  
Kenny  
essentially cartmans a cok

10/11/2010 01:35  
Craig  
where did you all go?

Before he could reply, Kenny heard a shriek from the passenger seat.

"That's his bike! Bebe, stop the car, it's his bike!"

Bebe began to slow the car down, but Wendy wasn't waiting. Tearing off her heels, she jumped out of the car as it lost speed, landing awkwardly onto the snow. She picked herself up quickly, and ran off into the shadows.

Kenny looked around, realising for the first time how far out they were. What the fuck was Cartman doing driving out this way? Trees stood tall and imposing all around them, casting heavy shadows over the layer of snow. Cartman's bike, with its distinctive red stripe running up the side, was crumpled against a tree some way ahead of them. Bebe's headlights cut through the dark. She turned off the engine, and the heat inside the car died suddenly. The night rushed back around the jeep.

"Are you going to follow her?" Kenny asked.

"In a minute. Are you?"

He shook his head. Bebe studied him silently, her pretty face barely visible. Prodding a button on his phone, he made the backlight come on again. It lit up Bebe's features like she should be telling a ghost story. She glanced down at his screen.

"Craig's asking where we are."

Kenny followed her gaze. "I should call him."

There was a pause, and then Bebe said, "We shouldn't leave her out there too long."

Kenny looked up at her. "Honestly, Bebe, she's the only one of us that gives a shit about him right now."

The grim look on Bebe's half-lit face said she knew exactly how he felt.

* * *

Wendy would have been lying if she said she didn't notice the chill of the snow and the stabs of loose twigs and rocks against her bare feet she tore from Bebe's car into the shade of the trees. The effects of the alcohol she'd drunk back at the party had long since worn off. It hurt, and she stumbled more than a couple of times as she scoured the dark for any sign of Cartman.

What would have been more accurate would be to say that she didn't care.

The moon was nearly full, which was a God send, because there was barely any other light out here. Given the time it took them to get her, and how far behind Cartman they'd been, he must have been going pretty fucking fast. And from the state of his motorcycle –

God, she had to find him.

The whole fight had been stupid, it had been fucking _stupid_. She knew he'd been drinking, she knew how he _got_, she should have just apologised, should have just let him have this one. But no, her _pride_ had been at stake, her _independence_, and all that would mean precisely nothing if she had to live the rest of her life feeling like Eric Cartman had died because of her.

She picked her way onwards, moving slower and trying to focus on every patch of ground that came into view. She was holding her breath, she realised, her ears keenly tuned to any noise around her.

_Where are Bebe and Kenny? Shouldn't they be following me?_

Then she heard it; a cough, somewhere up ahead, followed by a low groan. Her heart sped up.

"Cartman?" she called, as loud as she dared. "Cartman, is that you?"

Another groan.

"Eric?" She could hear her voice rising in pitch a little, and shit, she was so _scared_. She was more scared than she'd been in as long as she could remember, her insides churning at the prospect of seeing him in whatever state his crash had left him.

It scared her that she was so scared, really, but there'd be time for reflections like that later. Quickly, she made her way over to what she thought was the source of the sound.

Oh, shit.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh _shit _–

Cartman was slumped against a tree, nearly doubled over against himself. He was cradling one hand around the expanse of his stomach, and the other was splayed on the ground, steadying him. Even in the dim light of the moon, she could see the blood.

"_Cartman!_"

He finally looked up at about the moment she skidded to her knees next to him, taking a layer of skin off and tearing her leggings. _It could be worse,_ she told herself and a disjointed part of her brain latched onto it and began repeating it like a mantra. _It could be worse._

Cartman's face had seen better days. The entire left side was scratched and looked like it was going to bruise, and there was a nasty cut above his eye that was trickling blood down his cheek. For a single heartbeat, Wendy thought that was where it was all coming from. Then, she tentatively reached up to put her hand behind his head, and felt something warm and wet against her fingers.

Panic rose within her when they came away blood stained. _It's just a cut_, she thought desperately. _And yes that's an odd angle for an arm to be at, but it's just twisted. And bruises and cuts and twisted arms are alright. We just need to get him to –_

Cartman coughed again, and when he looked back at her, his eyes seemed to focus for the first time. "Wendy?"

"Yes," she breathed, relieved that at least he _knew_ her. "Look, Eric, you've had an accident, okay? You're bleeding, and we need to get you to hospital. Bebe's back there with her car, and Kenny's –"

"- shouldn't have yelled at him," Cartman mumbled. "Shouldn't have –"

"Don't talk, okay? Cartman – Cartman, just look at me. Eric?" His eyes were fluttering shut, and she shook him by his shoulder. _What do people say in these situations?_ "Stay with me," she tried.

Cartman chuckled dryly. "That's such a shit thing to say."

She laughed, an edge of hysteria creeping into her tone. "Right. Look, please just don't – you know, fall asleep or anything. Eric, just – oh!"

Wendy broke off as the hand Cartman was using to support himself suddenly wound its way around hers. She glanced down, for a fraction of a second, and when she raised her eyes to his again he was looking at her so intently that a shiver ran up her spine.

"Eric," he said, eyes still fixed on her.

"That's your name," she said tentatively. "You...you remember that right?"

"You're calling me Eric."

In a motion that was half-fluidity, half-momentum, he pushed her against him. She hung there, face to face with him, for a second out of time. His breath misted warmly against her neck, his eyes lingering on her mouth before lifting to hers again.

"Wendy," he groaned, before jerking her down into a haphazard kiss.

Wendy, after the fact, tried to tell herself that she froze at the touch of his lips. She tried to tell herself that she recognised it was neither the time nor place for something as absurd as kissing Eric Cartman, and pulled away abruptly. But the truth of the matter was that every emotion she had felt that night – flattery, from Clyde's attention; excitement at being dragged out on such short notice; anger, at Cartman; panic, for Cartman; fear, for Cartman...and she simply kissed him back.

They broke apart quickly. Cartman raised his uninjured hand to her face and sloppily cupped her chin. His eyes were starting to slip out of focus again.

"...love you..." he murmured, before his eyes fluttered shut. His hand dropped.

"Cartman?" Wendy shook his shoulder again. "Cartman?" He wasn't responding.

_Oh God, this isn't good. I've got to get Bebe_.

Scrambling to her feet, she turned back in the direction she had come. To her very great relief, she could already see a figure making its way towards her in the dark, and she hurried forward.

"Bebe?" she called desperately. "Bebe, I've found him, he's here, he's passed out –"

The figure sped up, and Bebe emerged from the shadows. "Help me carry him, then. We'll go straight to –"

She stopped, drawing a sharp hiss of breath when she saw him.

"He hit his head," Wendy said, catching sight of the blood again, feeling it still on her fingers, and feeling sick.

Her face set, Bebe hurried forwards, kneeling next to Cartman and trying to prop up his weight. "Wendy, I need your help. Get the other side of him."

Cartman was heavy and tall and heavier still in unconsciousness. Wendy struggled to support him, looping one of his arms around her neck, as Bebe seemed to effortlessly hold up his other side. It was a tortuously slow journey back to the car, where Kenny was standing, still and impassive. Something indistinct flickered briefly across his face when he saw Cartman's prone form, but it passed before Wendy could name it.

"Door, Ken," Bebe said brusquely, and Kenny complied. With a little difficulty, they manouvered Cartman into the backseat of the jeep. "Kenny, shotgun. Wendy, with Cartman."

Orders issued, Bebe climbed into the car. "Needless to say, ladies and gents," she said bitterly, "we'll be obeying the speed limit tonight."

As they set off Wendy realised she was trembling a little. She had Cartman's head on her lap, and quickly grabbed one of the towels Bebe kept for 'drunken accidents' (and didn't this just take the prize) and folded it underneath his wound. Anxiously, she ran a hand through his sweat- and blood-streaked hair, and drew her shaking fingers down his cut-up cheek.

_God, let him be alright_, she thought, and her lips were tingling and 'love you' buzzed in her ears, drowning out the engine, drowning out her panic, drowning out everything.

* * *

10/11/2010 02:02  
Kenny  
don't suppose you can come pick me up

10/11/2010 02:06  
Craig  
still drnk dude but clyde's here, he says its cool. Where u at?

10/11/2010 02:07  
Kenny  
Hospital

10/11/2010 02:07  
Craig  
Holy shit are u ok?

10/11/2010 02:10  
Kenny  
i'm fine. Its cartman. I don't wanna hang round here any more

10/11/2010 02:12  
Craig  
We got your back ken. Be there in 15

10/11/2010 02:13  
Kenny  
Today you are my hero

* * *

Hell's Pass loomed into view.

Craig leaned out of the window, the night air whipping against his face. The drive to the hospital was sobering him up, which was probably a damn good thing all things considered. He could feel his urge to hug random passers-by fading, and with it, his urge to kiss Kenny.

_And with it,_ he told himself resolutely, _my urge to kiss Kenny_.

It wasn't working. Even as his affectionate impulses drained away, the sensation of lying in Bebe's garden with his hand in Kenny's hair and their mouths crushed together wasn't dwindling. His mind kept randomly jumping back to it; the look in Kenny's eyes, the dry/wet contrast of the kiss itself, and more importantly – most important of all – how Kenny hadn't freaked out in some way.

If he was honest with himself, he didn't know why he'd done it. It was true that he'd been thinking more and more about maybe not being as arrow-straight as everyone else around here, and that a lot of those thoughts had been focused on _Kenny_, but he just figured that was because Kenny''d put the thought in his head and was suddenly hanging around him a lot. The only other person he was really close to was Clyde, and that would just be fucking weird.

He didn't _like_ Kenny. He'd meant it, hadn't he, when he said that it was just an experiment? Kenny was just – you know, convenient, and good-looking, and wickedly charming and important enough to make him offer Clyde twenty dollars to go pick him up from the hospital, and –

- and the thought of kissing Kenny again came back full force and God dammit, he _did_ like the bastard, didn't he?

Craig scowled at the hospital windows as Clyde parked up. Experiment successful, then. Fuck's sake, he had _not_ expected this.

And that's probably his own fault for having shit for brains, he thought, as he opened the passenger door and climbed out.

"We just picking McCormick up and going?" Clyde asked. He looked pretty tired. His hair was messed up; he'd been running his hands through it over and over during the journey.

"Yeah. Unless you want to hang around and see Cartman?"

There was something pale and sickening lingering on Clyde's face as he shook his head. "Yeah, not so much. I just wanna get home."

He turned abruptly and headed for the doors. Frowning, Craig caught up to him and stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Clyde, what's up?"

"Nothing, I'm just a little – you know."

"No, I don't," Craig said blankly. "Seriously, dude, we don't keep secrets and shit."

Clyde turned guilty eyes on him. "If I hadn't dragged Wendy out tonight 'cause I like her, Cartman wouldn't be in hospital."

Craig stared at him. "No," he said, "if Cartman wasn't a _jackass_ he wouldn't be in hospital."

"Yeah, but I –"

"Clyde," he said seriously, "you have to stop doing this every time something bad happens. You gotta leave some blame for the rest of the world, buddy."

Clyde grinned a little lopsidedly. "Guess you're right. Need to take a page out of _your_ book, and not give a shit about anything."

He had to suppress the image of a flash of blond and a heart-stopping grin before he nodded his agreement and pushed Clyde back towards the doors.

Clyde shuddered as they entered the sanitised-white foyer. Clyde _hated_ hospitals. Craig didn't really have much opinion on them one place or another – they were places you went when you were sick, and they smelt sort of funky. Clyde, on the other hand, had watched his grandparents die in quick succession when he was six years old, and Craig knew damn well those things stayed with a guy.

He scanned the foyer quickly. Kenny was leaning against a coffee machine halfway down a corridor spiralling off past the elevator, and Wendy and Bebe were standing with him. Bebe had her back to them, and Wendy had a harrowed look on her face, and her skirt looked ruined.

Kenny met Craig's eyes. He said something to the girls before sloping over, a look of grim relief on his face. "I'm glad you're here," he said gruffly. "Thanks so much for this, you guys."

"Anytime," Craig promised.

Clyde was looking past him at Bebe and Wendy. "Are they alright?" he asked softly. "How's Cartman?"

Something in the line of Kenny's jaw went tight, and Craig felt curiosity flare inside him. What had _happened_? Cartman and Kenny had been fine earlier that evening – Cartman'd seemed a little pissy, but –

A horrible thought hit Craig. _Shit._ What if it had been about - ?

Kenny shook his head slightly. "Cartman'll live. He's fucked up his arm. Don't reckon he's got a concussion but he got a knock on his head. He wrapped his bike around a tree."

Craig drew in a breath through his teeth. "Jesus."

"Yeah. Wendy found him out on the edge of town. Bebe's still trying to keep her from freaking out. She got blood all over her hands."

Kenny was relating the facts in a strange, disconnected tone. There was some kind of intangible hurt in his eyes that was turning Craig's stomach in a way that the thought of someone he knew laid up in hospital wasn't.

"Dude," he said, "let's get you home."

Their eyes met, and somewhere along the way the hurt turned to gratitude. "Thanks," he muttered.

Clyde jangled his keys. "Come on, you two. Let's get the fuck out of here."

He led the way back outside, Craig and Kenny trailing behind. Craig took a sideways glance at the blond kid, catching the look of dead removal on his face. His stomach lurched again. Acting on impulse, suddenly feeling even more reckless than he had when he'd decided to kiss him, Craig reached out and twined his fingers through Kenny's.

To his surprise, Kenny gripped back.

* * *

Cartman had learnt a long time ago that head injuries were no fun at all. Sure, you could get people in this backwards town to believe almost any story you fed them about 'visions' you got while you were out (an incident after Kyle beat him up at his bar mitzvah stood out particularly) but the headaches and the wooziness were too much discomfort for a little fun.

This pain felt different, though. This didn't feel like the usual clunk on the head he'd gotten kind of used to getting. And his arm – his arm was _killing_ him.

What the fuck had he _done_ to himself?

He couldn't open his eyes, he realised. A slow swirl of panic started in him until he realised he was hovering in the weird, morphine-induced, not-quite-awake horrorland of dipping in and out of consciousness until the shit wore off.

Wait, morphine?

Cartman struggled to cast his mind back to the party, but it sent his thoughts reeling. Try as he might, everything felt like it was swimming in sludge, and he couldn't quite fit the pieces together. He remembered _getting_ to the party, and starting to drink...and then there were just flashes of things – Wendy, at the party, Kyle being a dick, Kenny punching him in the face.

Which had hurt, he remembered. Why had the fucker gone and done that?

He couldn't find an explanation anywhere in the mess of his head, and sleep was dragging him back down. He gave up.

When he woke up again, he figured it must be daytime. The insides of his eyelids glowed pink in new light, and to his great relief, he found that – groggily, slowly – he could open them. He closed them again quickly against the sudden brightness that assaulted him, and groaned.

"He's awake!" someone said immediately.

"Huh?"

"He just groaned, dude. He's probably hungry."

"Kyle, you can't rip on him, he's in hospital."

"So? That never stopped him ripping on me. Or breaking into my house."

_Ah, fuck's sake_, Cartman thought. _I'm waking up to Kyle?_

"Fucking Jew," he mumbled.

"See? I told you he was awake. Rise and shine, fatass." Kyle's voice was chirpy. The asshole had probably come to gloat.

Stan (he assumed it was Stan) sighed, and he felt a shadow shift over him. Carefully, he opened his eyes again. Stan was standing closer to the bed, looking down at him, halfway between relieved and concerned. "You alright, Cartman?"

He narrowed his eyes. "I'm in hospital, you douchebag."

Kyle snorted from somewhere over by the doorway. "Brain's intact. More's the pity."

"Seriously," Cartman said thickly, "who the fuck let you in here, Kyle?"

Kyle loomed into view, shrugging. "Wanted to see if you were okay, man."

_A likely story. Probably trying to up my morphine and put me out of his misery, the sneaky rat. Memo to self: poison Kyle's lunch first day back at school._

"Yeah," Stan said. Cartman didn't doubt that _he_, at least, genuinely did care. Because Stan cared about _everything_. "Bebe said you totalled your bike."

Did he? It would make sense. Had he actually fucked up so badly as to actually _drive drunk_?

"Good thing, too. You were a fucking menace."

"I swear to God, Kyle, when I get up from this bed – "

Kyle laughed. "I'll just drive outta town, asshole."

Cartman growled. Stan looked exasperatedly between the two, rolling his eyes. He had pulled out his phone and was typing something.

"We've seen he's alive," Kyle said to Stan, peeking over his shoulder at the screen of his phone. "Can we go now?"

Silently, Cartman urged Stan to agree. The less time Kyle spent near his IV drip the safer he felt.

"Yeah, I'm just texting Wendy to let her know he's awake."

Cartman's heart leapt suddenly – taking him so much by surprise that for a second he actually felt sick. "Wendy?"

"She wanted me to text her right away if you came to," Stan said vaguely. "She'll be ultra pissy if I don't."

Kyle grinned. "Good. She can come babysit – and we can vamoose."

Stan looked up. "Is that okay with you, Cartman? You don't mind a hit and run visit?"

Cartman shrugged into his pillows. "I don't give a shit. Just get his shitty Jew hands away from my nice clean bed, yeah?"

Kyle stuck out his tongue (_childish prick_) and disappeared out the door. Stan moved to clap Cartman on the shoulder, and then stopped. "Almost forgot about your arm," he said apologetically.

"Oh yeah," Cartman said, looking down. "What the fuck happened? Did I break it?"

Stan frowned. "I dunno. There's no cast so I think you maybe just fucked it up."

Grimacing, he tried to move it experimentally. It hurt like hell. "_Ah!_" Jesus!

"I'll see you, then." And then Stan was gone, too. It left him in silence, mild discomfort, and the uneasy sensation that there was something important he was not recalling.

He couldn't get back to sleep. Cartman found himself stuck in the groggy only-barely-awake state he'd come to hate, unable to shift around too much because of the pain in his arm. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't patch together a picture of – had it been last night? The night before that? Shit, Stan and Kyle hadn't even told him how long he'd been here.

But they _had_ told him that Wendy had wanted to know as soon as he woke up. Which meant – he tried to stop the surge of hope rising in his chest, just in case – that she might be on her way _right now_ to visit him. He had a brief flash of Wendy weeping over his unconscious form and something inside him knotted tightly. If she cared about him, even slightly, even _fleetingly_, and he'd put her through anything like what he'd feel if it had been her in hospital...

His bike crossed his mind then. Stan said it had been totalled, which was fucking _weak_. For all his recklessness, Cartman had taken damn fine care of his motorcycle, and to have it stolen away from him in one freak accident pissed him off.

But, he thought, at least he'd got Wendy on it with him first. He smiled a little, feeling the cuts in his cheek stretch and pull, and realising how lucky he had actually been to get out of this crash with as little damage as he had. He raised his undamaged arm to feel his head. There was a bandage wrapped round – which didn't bode well, but verified the throbbing he was feeling at the back of his skull as a genuine injury and not his imagination running wild. Which was...reassuring, he guessed. At least he wasn't inventing pain again. That always sucked.

There was a small knock on the door, followed by an adult voice saying "Just go on in." The door was pushed open, and then _there she was_.

Wendy was wearing her hair up, and her long coat was spattered with rain. She looked worn and tired, like she hadn't been sleeping. Her lips parted and she let out a quiet, relieved-sounding "oh!" when she saw him, and something in Cartman's stomach knotted tight.

"Hi."

"Hey," she said weakly, edging forwards. "How are you feeling?"

Cartman couldn't take his eyes off her. She looked so...so... He couldn't place it. She _didn't_ look incredible – she looked strung out and shaky and scared. And then he realised what it was that was keeping him so fixated on her: it was the way _she_ was looking at _him_. There was an unnameable emotion it in his eyes that was setting his heart on edge.

"Erm." He swallowed. "Pretty crappy."

Hesitantly, Wendy made her way forwards. He shifted a little to make room, and she sat down at the edge of his bed. Then, she did something that was as unexpected as it was unbelievable: she reached out and took his hand in hers.

Wendy's fingers were soft and cool and slender against his palm. "I'm glad you're okay," she murmured.

Awkwardly – tentatively – Cartman closed his hand around hers, his chest tight. Not that he was complaining or anything, but why the _fuck _was she holding his hand? Jesus Christ, what had he done to merit this? Had he turned into a fucking white knight for an hour and just blacked it out from sheer humiliation or something?

"How long have I been in hospital?" he asked.

"About thirteen hours," she said confidently, without checking her watch. A look of sudden disapproval crossed her face. She squeezed his hand. "You really worried me last night."

Cartman chose one of the only things he was sure about and ran with it. "For driving off?"

"Yeah. Cartman, you were _drunk_. You crashed. You could have gotten hurt way worse than this."

He grinned. "But I didn't."

"Don't say that!" Her voice sounded taut and afraid. "Please, don't even tempt fate like that. God, I was so _worried_."

He might have been imagining it, but it sounded like there was a note of disbelief in her voice. Like, he thought, like it was only last night she'd realised just how _much_ the prospect of something happening to him worried her. Like, maybe, she'd realised –

And after all, she was holding his hand.

"I'll never do shit like that again," he promised.

Wendy's expression didn't change. "Yes, you will," she said sadly. "That's who you are. You'll _always_ do dumb crap like this. You'll always be unpredictable and ridiculous and angry and end up hurting people, like Kenny, or worse yet, hurting yourself –"

"What?" He stared at her. "What about Kenny?"

She frowned. "You don't remember...arguing with him?"

"I remember him punching me," he admitted. "But my head's fucked up. You've gotta tell me what the fuck went down, Wendy."

Wendy bit her lip, her hand shifting in his. "It was...it wasn't good, Cartman. You flipped out on him. Well, you flipped out on _me_, but we always do that, and I said some things –" she coloured – "I said some things to _you_ I'm not proud of."

"Like what?"

"No," she said, shaking her head firmly. "I'm not dredging up our fight."

"_We_ fought? Did _you_ punch me, too?" He paused, remembering something. "Wait, why the fuck were you at the party anyway? You told me you were tired. Said you wanted to stay in."

She dropped her gaze. "I know. And truth is...look, I guess I just wanted a night away, alright?"

He could feel his expression darkening. "Great."

"Don't start," she said sharply, pulling her hand away from his and crossing her arms. "Don't you _dare_ start, this is exactly what you did last night and I'm not going through it all again, especially not with you in a hospital bed. I'm not apologising, either," she added, giving him a warning look.

"You fucking _lied _to me," he accused. His hand felt empty and strange without hers against it, and it annoyed it, reminding him how much of a pussy this chick made him into.

"For God's sake, you've done worse than that to me." Wendy sounded exasperated. "I don't care, okay? I don't care about the party, I don't care about the fight – I _just_ care that you're alive."

He stared at her balefully. "Maybe _I_ care."

Wendy stood up, brushing her fringe away from her face. "Fine," she said coolly. "I'll just go home, then, if I'm such a terrible person."

"I didn't _say_ –"

"You did last night. And you're heading down the same road now."

"For fuck's sake, Wendy."

"No. _No_. I'm not letting you bully me into apologising for something I had every right to do." She looked dangerous and proud. "I'm not letting you make me feel that unless I beg your forgiveness anytime I do something vaguely _independent_ you're going to try to kill yourself. I'm not letting you – I'm not letting _anyone_ – make me feel that way."

Cartman could feel his temper rising. His head was throbbing. Jesus Christ, this bitch. "Shit, what the hell is wrong with you? A minute ago, you were fucking all over me –"

"Your problem," she interrupted, "is that you can't cope with anything that doesn't fit your mind set. So you try to _smash_ it, even if it means practically breaking your best friend's heart."

"Huh?"

"Kenny, you idiot. And you can't even remember – you don't even remember the _look_ on his face when you said –"

"You're right, I don't!" he said, loudly. No. He wasn't going to do this to himself, not _again_. He'd very clearly fucked up badly the night before, and he wasn't going to make it worse now. Wendy – fuck, Wendy had been acting different towards him, like maybe she liked him, and maybe it was the morphine and maybe it was the head wound but suddenly, he didn't want to fight. "I don't," he said again, more quietly. "Wendy, sit back down. Seriously. I'm sorry."

She hesitated, but Cartman knew damn well she was a sucker for his 'sincerely contrite' tone. Slowly, she sat back down.

On an impulse, he grabbed her hand again. He felt her flinch slightly under his grasp. "I've got no fucking idea, right? And shit, I'm _seriously_ sorry I fucking gunned it out of there like that. That was dumb. And yeah, you're right, I _am_ 'like that'. I do all kinds of crap without thinking and I'm probably _not_ gonna change, but hell, I just –"

_Tell her. Tell her. Tell her!_ His brain was screaming at him that _this_ was the moment, this was his chance – all alone, emotions running high, drugs spinning him out, fingers linked, he should just _tell_ her –

But his lips wouldn't work. He couldn't get the right words out, and he finished lamely, "I just fucked up. I'm sorry."

The look in Wendy's eyes told him she knew he hadn't said what he'd meant to, and for a terrifying second he was sure she knew how he felt. He was suddenly scared about what he might have done the night before, and he wanted more than anything to ask. But he didn't dare.

"I already told you, Eric," she said gently. "I don't _care_. You're alive."

"What about Kenny?" he asked.

Wendy pursed her lips. "That's...oh, I really don't know. I haven't had a proper chance to talk to him, so –"

"Wendy, what did I do?"

For a moment, she did not reply. Then, she said, very haltingly, "You...I think it's best if just this once – yeah, this time – if I just leave this to you guys to sort out. It's..."

"_Wendy_," he said, injecting his voice with an added sense of urgency. "Tell me what I've gotta try and make right with that poor bastard. What did I _do_?"

She sighed. "You lived up to expectations," she said sadly.

* * *

Wendy was late getting out of Drama rehearsals last thing Monday afternoon. Kenny, of course, had got the fuck out of there as quickly as humanly possible, 'forgetting' his copy of the script on his way. Clyde, being a shit-eating douchebag, had naturally picked it up for him on his way out and, grinning, shoved it into Kenny's hands as he made his way to the parking lot.

"Better learn your lines, _babe_," he quipped.

Kenny flipped him the bird, and promptly realised, with horror, that he was turning into Craig Tucker.

It had been a pretty surreal weekend. After getting the hell out of the hospital Friday night, he had managed to avoid both visiting Cartman and seeing Wendy until school that day. Cartman was still laid up, apparently, but Wendy had taken a seat next to him in homeroom. There'd been this moment when they'd looked at each other, just looked, and it had been pretty obvious they had a lot to talk about.

Well, it was Pot Roast Monday, after all.

He'd spent Saturday afternoon at Craig's house, kicking back and playing video games. To his very great surprise, things had not been awkward in the slightest. Neither of them had made any mention of what had happened at the party at all, until Craig had very abruptly informed him that he'd been thinking about it and he was definitely into guys.

"Just guys?" Kenny'd asked.

Craig had shrugged. "Fuck if I know. Never kissed a girl."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, man. I'm not exactly a pulling machine, you know."

"Well, yeah, I figured _that_."

"So anyway, I'm sober now and I reckon I could probably like you."

Kenny couldn't explain why it hadn't shocked him. He couldn't explain why it hadn't made him feel uncomfortable, why he hadn't felt pressured to respond or explain or apologise – why it had just felt so _normal_. It was completely fucking bizarre, with the oddest thing being that it didn't seem odd at all.

Maybe, he thought, it was that look in Craig's face. He'd said it so casually, so matter-of-fact, with this look like, 'This is how things are. You got a problem, you get the fuck out'.

Kenny'd stayed put. He'd realised quite quickly that he didn't have a problem with it at all.

Things hadn't _stayed_ so blissfully normal. He'd made plans with Craig for Sunday, too, and the pair of them had headed into Denver for the day with Clyde. They'd done fuck all but lurk around shop entrances sniggering at ten year old kids and cannon-balling smoothies, but something had been different.

Kenny couldn't stop fucking looking at Craig.

It was painful. Suddenly, he was noticing ridiculous things about him – like how one bit of his fringe was growing longer than the rest and poking out from under his hat, like how he had a habit of scratching the corner of his lip when he was deciding something. He was finding himself fascinated in every little thing Craig did, and Kenny McCormick had had enough crushes to know exactly what that meant.

In all honestly, he'd never appreciated Clyde's company before then. But his oblivious presence had diffused Kenny's sudden panic about how he might be responding to even the most innocent of questions, and helped him relax into the weird non-awkwardness of the day before. After he'd sketchily filled them in on the fight with Cartman (omitting, of course, the cause), Clyde had simply given him a wide grin and declared that he should _totally_ just hang out with them from now on.

Come Monday, that was exactly what he'd done. And it had been pretty damn awesome, to be honest. Craig was coarse and dryly aggressive, and Clyde was so laid-back he was almost on his back. Kenny, with his erraticness and enthusiasm, found out quickly that he slotted into the dynamic with very little difficulty.

More than anything, it was _calm_. And so normal. There were no declarations that they needed to take over Palestine, no pleas to join a rally protesting Burma's human rights policy. Instead, Clyde had spent half an hour trying to wheedle five bucks out of Craig, and they'd sat down and discussed the merits of vodka over beer in terms of hangover intensity. They'd been sat outside, shuddering a little in the cold, and Craig had been very close, and their arms had almost brushed.

"Ready to go?"

Wendy had finally emerged from the classroom, zipping up her bag. She swept her hair back and smiled at him, but she had the same look she'd had that morning.

"Yeah, let's go." Kenny shouldered his own bag and followed her out to the lot. They walked past the last of the parked cars, and Kenny watched as Clyde's car followed Bebe's jeep out into the streets. The bus pulled up just as they reached the stop.

"So," Wendy said, quietly, once they were seated. Kenny shifted. He _didn't_ want to talk about Cartman, didn't want to hear her defend him, which was why he was surprised when he heard her say, "Craig."

He looked at her. She was smiling curiously, her head tilted. He grinned. "Yeah. _Craig_. Of all people, right?"

She laughed. "It's...pretty random. I'd never have guessed at him for you."

Kenny raised his eyebrows. "'Cause he's a guy?"

"No," she snorted. "'Cause he's Craig. Kenny, look who you're talking to. I understand the appeal of men _much _more than I understand the appeal of girls."

"...that's one way of looking at it."

Wendy shrugged, still smiling. "The only difference between Craig and - oh, I don't know, Red – is cup size, as far as I'm concerned."

"There are _other_ differences."

There was a pause as Wendy studied him. Then, she said, "do you...like, do you actually like him, then?"

Kenny considered it. "You know what?" he said. "I actually think I...kinda do."

Wendy let out an uncharacteristic girly noise. "You _have_ to bring me up to speed on this. Where the hell have you been all weekend? I've been _waiting_ for a chance to ask you about him but you've been freaking avoiding me or something. Details, Kenny, details!"

He laughed exasperatedly. It was easy, sometimes, to forget Wendy could chick-it-up with the best of them. "_Well_," he began. "You might have heard from Bebe that her garden's a bit of a mess..."


	8. Corsets and Charm

Disclaimer: Don't own South Park. Lyrics - Baobabs at Regina Spektor. I also don't own the Joker or Batman, for the sake of the one reference in this chapter.

Note: OH MY GOD IT HAS BEEN SO LONG I AM SO SORRY. And I reward you with this half-length chapter. I'm so sorry for the wait. This has been very much back-burnered for me but I've got back into it and should be able to ride it to the homestretch now. I don't think there's more than three to five chapters left in it.

Anyway, to anyone who still feels like picking this story up after basically a year, thank you for giving me a second chance, and do please enjoy. The next chapter should be up in three or four days, I think. Hope you're all doing grand!

x

**Chapter Eight  
Corsets and Charm**

_you have tamed me_  
_now you must take me_  
_how am i supposed to be adorned in my thorns now?_

* * *

Kenny stood with his hands on his hips, squinting. "What do you think?" he asked, tone layered with caution.

Craig, arms folded and standing opposite, surveyed him. "No," he said flatly.

"No?"

"No."

Kenny breathed a sigh. "Well, _that's_ a relief," he grinned, pulling Bianca's wig from his head. "I think I would have probably had to call 'problem' on this if you really preferred me this way."

Craig eyed him critically. "I never said I _would._ And Kenny, for fuck's sake, take the corset off."

"But I _like_ how it simultaneously crushes my rib cage _and_ makes me an object of derisive scorn."

"McCormick, for real, it's making you look deformed," Clyde said from the doorway.

Craig looked over and rolled his eyes. "Oh look, you're in your fucking costume again. What a fucking surprise."

Clyde didn't even have the good grace to look ashamed of himself. "I'm wearing it in," he told them, unapologetically.

"Wearing it in _a very successful attempt to look like a douche."_

"Tucker, your costume is like mine but without the _armour_ bits. Who's gonna look more like a douche?"

"Kenny," Craig said, without needing to hesitate.

Kenny scowled. "Real supportive, bro."

"I still haven't forgiven you for your part in getting me roped into this. And I never will."

"Not even if I wear the wig?" Kenny asked, twisting his face into a grimace Craig assumed was meant to be 'cute'.

He rolled his eyes. "Kenny, you have to give it up with the wig. I am telling you this as your friend – the wig is hurting you and you have to let it go."

"Whatever you say, boss." Kenny dropped the wig to the floor. "So you really like me as I am, boy parts and all?"

A groan from the doorway. "Not this again," Clyde said, disappearing out of sight.

"Homophobe!" Craig called after him.

Clyde's reply came from down the corridor. "No, hating on gays is homophobic. Not wanting to watch two of your buddies play tonsil hockey for fifteen minutes is _pretty fucking normal_ if you ask me!"

Kenny snickered. Craig sort of smiled.

"Yeah," Craig said then. "Boy parts and all, and you gotta stop asking. It's getting annoying."

Kenny rolled his shoulders in a relaxed shrug. Craig loved the way the bizarre, wiry parts of Kenny's body fit together. He was all angles and spikes and ashen skin, but there were sparks in his eyes and in his every move that ignited him in a way Craig had never seen before. Almost a month on from their first, drunken kiss, and he and Kenny were...together? He didn't really know. There'd been this one fumbling, awful attempt at organising what was happening between them into words, but they'd gotten tangled in semantics and expectations and had eventually abandoned the whole thing as a lost cause when Kenny attached himself to Craig's mouth. The fucker had done it to prove a point, but Craig couldn't fault him for where it had led.

After that, there had been no more questioning, no more quantifying. The gay/not gay debate came to an end, with both parties deciding that pushing labels back and forth wasn't getting them anywhere, but lying languid on Craig's bed learning the patterns of each others' shoulders and stomachs _was_. They knew they liked each other. They knew they _liked_ each other, too – that they felt that way now, that they were both cool with that, that they liked kissing and if ever there came a time when one of them wanted to kiss girls or other dudes instead then they could deal with that at the time.

And after an awkward incident which Craig subsequently cited as 'the day Clyde finally realised the importance of knocking', they knew that their friends were cool with it, too.

So the way Craig saw it, there wasn't anything to worry about.

Kenny said he thought that too, but Craig knew that there was one thing still bothering him. But that very overweight, very obnoxious and suddenly very friendless bother was not his concern.

He liked being this way with Kenny, so fuck it, he was gonna be this way with Kenny.

...Kenny, who had somehow closed the gap between them and unfastened the black-ribbed corset he'd been wearing. He was spaghetti-thin beneath it, but Craig was quickly learning the lines and curves of his ribs through his skin, and his hands drifted absently to their favourite resting place – half-on-half-off Kenny's bottom ribs, feeling his diaphragm move, his stomach and lungs expand and deflate.

"This getting annoying?" Kenny said, all innocent-eyes and slick charm.

"Yeah," Craig said. "You hovering in front of me is pretty fucking annoying."

"Better fix that."

"Better had."

"Wouldn't want to annoy you, after all."

"Kiss me, you fuck."

And he did.

* * *

"Come on Wends, _please._"

"_No_, Bebe, and I cannot even believe you're still asking me this."

Bebe skirted in front of her, extending her hands palm up. "Wendy, please, I need this. Come on. It's _me_."

"It's _fighting_."

"It's _boxing._"

"Yes," Wendy said agreeably, taking Bebe's hands in her own and lowering them. "And for what must be the forty fifth time this week, I'm _not – interested."_

She strode off, but Bebe was in front of her again a second later. Girl was fast, Wendy had to give her that. "That's the best part! You don't have to be interested! Just pretend you are – for twenty minutes!"

Wendy looked at her disbelievingly. "Bebe, if I pretend for _five_ minutes, I'm going to get punched in the face."

"They're not going to punch you in the face, Wendy – plus you might even be up against be, and I wouldn't hurt you, c'mon, you know I wouldn't hurt –"

"I don't know if I can express to you," Wendy said very slowly and deliberately, because Bebe was very clearly not getting this, "how much I _do not want_ to get punched in the face."

"I swear you won't get punched in the face. A tap in the shoulder, that's like, the absolute worst that will happen, I promise."

"It won't, because I'm not going."

"Wendy!" Bebe cried, anguished. "I need five girls! That's it! You just need to try out! Express an interest! _Please!_"

She sighed. Bebe hadn't begged this hard for anything in _years_ – not since that thing with the escaped rabbits, which had been a disaster for everyone. "I really don't want to get hit, Bebe."

"No one will hit you!"

"I don't want to _hit_ anyone!"

Bebe flapped her hands impatiently. "You can_ miss!_"

Wendy studied her friend carefully. "Ugh. You really, really want this, don't you?"

"More than you can imagine," Bebe said earnestly. "Johnson says that if five girls try out – just five – he'll go to Kendall about letting girls join up."

Wendy stopped suddenly. "Join up? You didn't tell me Johnson wasn't letting girls join up. You just said you wanted me to try out with you."

Bebe blew hair out of her face. "C'mon, Wends, you should know I don't need you to hold my hand any more than you need me to hold yours. Johnson's just citing some stupid, old rule to stop me from joining up. To look like a tough guy in front of the boys."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Wendy said, feeling a familiar tingle start to spread through her blood. Bebe sighed. She could clearly see what Wendy could feel was happening.

"Because now you're going to go on one of your insane campaigns again and seriously Wendy, I just need five girls, not to piss Johnson off so much he hates on me for the rest of –"

Wendy cut her friend off by putting her hands on her shoulders and giving Bebe her most winning smile – a trick she had learnt a while ago. "What if we piss him off so much they have to hire _another gym teacher?"_

"Er...you've lost me. You want to get him fired?"

"Oh no," Wendy said, still smiling. "I just want him to split the job. With a _woman."_

Bebe gave her a disapproving look. "You are hijacking my hobbies for your personal political reasons again. I hope you realise that."

Wendy's smile turned vicious at the edges. "It's a habit. I'm trying to break it."

"You're doing a lousy fucking job."

"But...?"

Bebe sighed. "But go ahead. It always turns out okay in the end."

Wendy hugged her tightly just as the bell for third period rang. "Spanish," she said mournfully."

"History," Bebe said, equally mournfully. "See you at lunch, I guess."

As Bebe headed off down the hall towards the History room, and the halls started to fill with people flowing from the classes, Wendy's head started to buzz with ideas. She had several poster slogans and a couple of campaign-name ideas already bubbling to the front of her mind when Bebe stopped in the doorway and looked back, wearing a devious smile.

"She played me," Wendy said, aloud and incredulously. Led her right into thinking this was just a quiet personal thing, when Bebe wanted the war as much as Wendy did. She could almost have laughed. Oh, there would be a war, alright. God, Bebe must _really_ want this, if was stooping to the kind of tactics that –

Remembering class, her heart sank. Another period of playing the 'avoid the elephant in the room' game with Eric Literal Manifestation Cartman himself. Thing had just been so...so _awkward. _He'd barely been in hospital four days when he was released with a clean bill of health (thank God). The Tuesday night he'd headed home had been chaos. Wendy had gone to meet him to find him unreasonable, rude, standoffish and even more pugnacious than normal. The first time she'd gently (well, roughly speaking) reminded him that _he_ was the one who'd asked _her_ to come, he'd practically shouted her out of the hospital. He was back to school a couple of days later – his arm in a sling, unbroken but still injured – with moods even more difficult to predict. After two weeks of being subjected to intermittent anger and awkward affection, Wendy had mentally resigned her position as Friend and stepped back.

...Except they still sat by each other in most classes, and their lockers were still only four feet apart, and he still kept trying to start conversations, so it wasn't turning out to be that easy.

"Wendy?"

She started, surprised at the interruption to her thought. She had drifted quite close to the classroom without realising it, but her way was blocked by Clyde – tall, sports jacketed and grinning.

"Hi," she said, smiling pleasantly. "Hate to run, but I've got to get to class. Catch you later?" She made to move past him, but Clyde sidestepped in front of her. What _was_ it with her friends and getting in her way today? "Clyde."

"Wendy?"

"You're not letting me pass," she said, stepping aside again. Once more, he blocked her.

"Oh. No, you're right, no I'm not."

Wendy waited to see if he had anything else to say. When he continued to simply stand there and grin, she sighed and prodded him in the chest. "Why?"

"Because I have _such a great plan."_

Wendy frowned, seeing where things were headed. "This is a class-ditching kind of plan, isn't it, Clyde?"

"You're so astute, Wendy. It's one of your best qualities."

She put her hands flat on her chest and tried to push him back. The boy was as solid as steel. Fuck. _Footballers_.

"Oh, come on. Do you want to ditch with me and go laugh at the pictures I have of Kenny in the Bianca costume, or do you want to spend a period in a subject you hate sat next to a dude who smells like grease and shame?"

Wendy looked up at him, half smiling. "A compelling argument but I still pick Spanish."

"I will carry you out of here if I have to," he warned.

"And I will sue you for battery, Clyde, so help me God."

He sighed. "Wendy, the pictures are _really good_. Plus," he added, his grin slipping into a softer kind of smile, "I reckon you could use a bit of time off. A bit of a talk."

She bit her lip. Ditching was _not_ her thing, but...

At that moment, Cartman rounded the corner. His face was full of thunder and his hair was a mess, and his bad arm hung unhappily in its sling. He caught her eye for a second, and in that moment, looked like he was going to say something. Wendy watched him until he broke eye contact, and he slammed the door to the classroom much louder than was necessary to make his point.

Clyde sighed again. "You were almost smiling a second ago. Now, you're all bummed out. C'mon. Really?"

She looked up at him, and she rolled her eyes. "Fine," she relented. "Fine. But if this is just going to turn into another episode of 'Clyde's Traumas' because you were stupid enough not to knock again –"

"Shut up," he said genially, nudging her backwards. He was grinning again. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

09/12/2010 11:37

Kenny  
I AM SO BORED ARE YOU SO BORED

09/12/2010 11:41  
Craig  
I am learning.

09/12/2010 11:43  
Kenny  
please stop learning nd txt me instead.

09/12/2010 11:49  
Craig  
Learning learning learning

09/12/2010 11:50  
Kenny  
HURTING IN MY SOUL

09/12/2010 11:55  
Craig  
I love to learn but my baby just loves to dance

09/12/2010 11:57  
Kenny  
ill show you dancing

09/12/2010 11:58  
Kenny  
hurr hurr

09/12/2010 11:58  
Kenny  
craig?

09/12/2010 11:59  
Kenny  
!

09/12/2010 12:00  
Craig  
Fine what did you want to talk about. x

* * *

Wendy had a look of confusion mingled with suspicion on her face as Clyde led her behind the school.

"Clyde, this'd better not be some kind of –"

He _tsked_ and winked at her. "What do you think of me, eh? Up here." He tapped the ladder they'd arrived at. "We're going to the roof."

"The roof?" Wendy said disbelievingly.

Clyde grinned. "That's right. It's perfectly safe, Craig and I have been up here loads of times. It's a pretty great place to go if you're bunking off because most of the teachers can't be fucked climbing up to check there."

"There's an access door inside, though."

"Yeah, a broken locked access door."

Wendy raised a single eyebrow. "Why do I suddenly feel as if _you_ had something to do with that?"

"Because I _really_ like the roof," he told her, seriously. He could see her struggling against a smile. She wanted so badly to disapprove of skipping class and climbing up to the roof and breaking fire exits, but she couldn't _quite _bring herself to. She'd been so much..._lighter_ lately. If Clyde had to put a cause to her apparent good mood, it would be the absence of Eric Cartman. "After you," he said, gesturing to the ladder.

She scoffed. "What, so you can stare at my ass while I climb?" she said teasingly.

Clyde held up his hands. "I swear, I won't even peek. But it's good manners. I can catch you if you fall."

"I'm not going to _fall_," she said, but she was watching him pensively. Then, she moved forward, and climbed onto the first rungs of the ladder.

And true to his word, Clyde kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. Checking out a girl was one thing – checking out a girl when you _specifically promised her you wouldn't _was bang out of order. Or at least, so he'd always believed.

Wendy was waiting for him at the top, when he pulled himself the last rung and onto the roof. "We're really high up," she said, somewhat unnecessarily. "I've never been up here."

Clyde shrugged. "Like I said, it's quiet. Check it – if we go over to that side, we can look down over the track. See if there any other classes out for gym."

They sat down at the west edge of the roof – Wendy sitting cross-legged a few paces from the edge, Clyde swinging his legs into the nothingness below. A class from what looked like the freshmen year was running slow laps around the track, but besides that, the only people in sight were the odd groups of students that drifted out of one door and into another aimlessly. Clyde glanced back at Wendy, who was looking down at the ground below.

"Nervous about heights?"

"Not really," she said, looking up and smiling a little.

He leant back, taking a better look at her face. "You've been a lot more chill lately, you know."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Since you started hanging out with Bebe more...and since you and Kenny started kicking with me and Craig at the weekends...you just seem a lot less stressed out. Even with the play coming up and everything."

"That reminds me, you owe me Kenny pictures," Wendy pointed out.

"Right, right." Clyde fished for his phone in his jean pockets and leant backwards until he was laying down on roof. The sun shone brightly into his eyes, but it wasn't on his screen, which is what counted. Wendy leant over him, her hair curtaining around his face and providing a measure of shade. "Check this one."

"Is that – is that a corset, Clyde?"

"You bet your fucking life it's a fucking corset." Clyde grinned up at her. Amusement sparkled in her eyes. "He's going to look like an absolute freak on Saturday."

Wendy shook her head, the tips of her hair brushing against his cheeks and his chin. "Thursday's going to be worse for him. A whole day dress rehearsal? The entire class there? I've planned out all my homework for this whole week so I have that night guaranteed free just to laugh at him."

Clyde chuckled. "Man, I might have to join you. I mean, that is going to be just – amazing."

"He and Craig will probably slink off somewhere to lick their wounds afterwards," she observed.

Clyde rolled his eyes. "Or lick something –"

"_Thank_ you Clyde, don't need that."

There was a pause, where Clyde wondered if it was good manners or not to ask the question on the tip of his tongue. "So," he said after a moment, deciding it was probably okay, "what do you _think_ about...that?"

"About Kenny and Craig?"

"Erm, yeah."

Wendy sat back, and the full brunt of the near-midday sun hit Clyde in the face. He gave a kind of undignified and raised his hands in front of his face. Wendy laughed. "Well, I think it's good. As long as I've been friends with Kenny, his crushes have always been really temperamental, always really fleeting. I don't know, it doesn't seem like that with Craig. They seem to really like each other. And I think that's good."

"I guess," Clyde said, pulling a face.

Something sharpened in Wendy's gaze. "You have a problem with it?"

"No!" Clyde said quickly, shaking his head. "No, not like that, nothing like that! I mean, well. It's just...thrown me a bit, y'know? It's not that I care if my best bud is batting for the other team, it's more..." his brows knitted, "it's more that I didn't notice it. What kind of friend doesn't notice shit like that?"

Wendy gave him a look he couldn't quite work out. "Has Craig ever expressed romantic interest in anyone?"

Clyde thought about it. "Er, no, not really. Not until now."

She sat back, seemingly satisfied. "There you go, then. You've had no basis to compare his behaviour with. It's not that you're an inattentive friend. It's that Craig is an emotionally reclusive tool."

"That he is," Clyde said agreeably. "Though I gotta admit, bastard has seemed just..._smilier_ lately."

Wendy nodded. "Yeah, I've noticed."

"It's a bit creepy."

"It's _really_ creepy."

"It's fucked up as hell. He has, like, a Joker smile."

"Couple that with Kenny's dead eyes when he's tired."

"Oh, God, tell me about it. It's like the fucking circus of the damned."

"Like some kind of demonic possession."

"They're chill bros but if they're going to keep this shit up I'm going to ban them from happiness."

Wendy laughed. "Can we really allow them their peace and love if it makes us vaguely uncomfortable?"

"Absolutely not," Clyde said, sitting up. "Got to put a stop to that crazy shit right now. Inconsiderate assholes."

Wendy laughed again, framed in the sun. Clyde studied her outline, taking in the line of her neck and the sweep of her hair. He smiled. "Hey, you know something?"

"What?"

"When I first found out that Kenny and Craig were hanging out – before it turned out they were into each other – I wanted to try to get Craig to get Kenny to get you to talk to me more."

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Wendy said, "oh? And why's that?"

Clyde grinned, a little goofily. "'Cause I liked you."

Wendy raised both eyebrows this time, haughty in an almost-silhouette. "And what about now?"

He pulled himself properly upright now, considering. "Now, I'm not so sure."

Wendy made a derisive – but amused – noise. "Oh, _thanks_ –"

"Hey, hear me out!" Clyde protested. "Now, I'm not so sure, 'cause I know you. Like, I know you as a friend. As a person. You're not just...the hot smart chick that hangs out with McCormick and Cartman. You're Wendy. And you're awesomeness."

"My awesomeness makes me less attractive?" A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Jesus, she was just so _relaxed_ now.

"Yes. No! Yes, but no, it's more like..." he fumbled for words, finally igniting on an idea. "It's like when you try a new soda."

"A new soda."

"Yeah. And it's all crazy and fizzy and shit and you're like, wow, what the fuck is this flavour and how can I get it _all over my tongue._ And then you drink more of it, and instead of it being this crazy new thing that you want to have all at once, it becomes, like, your favourite drink. And you enjoy it slowly, and better, instead of drinking so much at once you need to piss every five minutes for two hours."

Wendy eyed him critically. "An elegant metaphor."

"Hey, I'm a footballer, not a linguist."

She opened her mouth – probably to make some correction that _that_ statement – but she held herself back. "I know what you mean," she said, after a few moments. Being around you and Craig is just...nice. It's easy. It's simple. It's...what friendship should be."

Clyde nodded. "I reckon if we got together that would fuck shit up a little bit."

"Probably."

He paused, and then he said, "Do you think it...might have happened, though? If Kenny and Craig...if Bebe's party..."

She tilted her head to the side and smiles. "Who knows?"

"I reckon Cartman would have murdered me."

Wendy's face darkened at that, and Clyde frowned. "He probably would have," she said, in a strange tone.

"I've gotta ask, Wends. What went down at Bebe's? You and Kenny just suddenly...stopped dealing with him. And I think that's a great thing – you've both just been so much fucking happier with him out of your life – but I've got to wonder why."

She hunched her shoulders uncomfortably, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Kenny tried to stop him being mad at me. He said about Craig. Cartman called him a fag. Cartman got in a crash. Cartman came back from the crash and turned into an asshole to me. End of story."

"I see."

Clyde didn't really see at all. As far as he could tell, Cartman was always calling Kenny obscene things and always being a complete dickhead to Wendy. How this recent turn of events had changed any of that was lost on him. But it seemed to have changed it for Wendy, and seeing as she was the one who'd been friends with the fat bastard, he supposed that was all that matters.

"It still bothers me. A lot. I wish it didn't."

"You're happier."

"Sometimes. When I'm with you guys. "

"Then we'll stay with you all the time," Clyde said, like it was the simplest thing in the world, and Wendy smiled a sad and lovely smile. Shit, she really was a looker. It was a pretty good thing he was on the tail end of his thing, otherwise it'd be so easy to just reach out and...

But he wasn't feeling that way so much anymore. Clyde, for all the idiocy most people credited him and all the obliviousness Craig insisted he approached life with, always got there eventually, even if it was way after everybody else had worked out the story.

"I don't think he's really your friend, you know."

"Who, Cartman?" she asked. "No shit."

"No, I mean, I don't think that's what you guys were. Friends. You and Kenny are friends. Me and you, we're friends. Kenny and Cartman..._were_ friends. You and Cartman, nah. You were like...something else."

"Like what?" Wendy was watching him with a gaze that looked almost fearful.

For Clyde, it was all starting to make sense. The reason she was happy whenever she was with friends, how worn down she'd been before, how she and Cartman had both reacted to the breakdown of their friendship.

"Wendy, I really hate to be the one to break this to you – like, _really_ hate it – but dude, you _like_ Cartman."

She looked up at him. "I really don't want that to be true," she said piteously.

"I don't think anyone wants it to be true. Anymore than I want Craig to keep stealing from ten year olds on a weekly basis."

"What?"

"Nevermind. The point is...I don't really know what the point is."

Wendy sighed. "The point is I'm much happier not being his friend," she said, with the heavy air of someone undergoing a very reluctant realisation, "but I'm not happier not being his _anything_."

"Wendy, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but digging Cartman is pretty fucked up shit."

"I know," she groaned. "I hate myself, too."

"So...what are you going to do?"

She flopped backwards onto the roof, staring at the sky. "Die of embarrassment," she said.

Clyde thought it sounded like a pretty reasonable approach.

* * *

_marshlander has come online_

_marshlander_: bro!  
**broflovskik:** bro.  
**broflovskik**: hear the latest?  
_marshlander_: which latest, there are so many  
**broflovskik**: good point  
**broflovskik**: ummm bebe and wendy latest i guess  
_marshlander_: is this about the boxing  
_marshlander_: wendy and bebe would not shut up about it at lunch  
_marshlander_: i mean seriously you left me with them THEY TALKED WITHOUT BREAKING FOR TWENTY MINUTES  
**broflovskik**: does it even occur to you that you can leave in situations like that?  
_marshlander_: NO  
_marshlander_: no wait kyle they were talking about BOXING, if i had tried to leave they would have PUNCHED ME  
**broflovskik**: marsh, you are a fucking football star. bebe could take you but you might break wendy on one bicep.  
_marshlander_: when are you coming over anyway, i am so bored  
_marshlander_: and you abandoned me at lunch  
**broflovskik:** i had stuff to do  
_marshlander_: gay stuff  
**broflovskik**: hur hur funny you should say that  
_marshlander_: this would be classed as a bad way to come out to me  
**broflovskik**: douche  
_marshlander_: you cant resist my charms  
**broflovskik:** it's about Kenny  
_marshlander_: been trying for years but just cant hold your feelings back anymore  
_marshlander_: wait kenny? our Kenny?  
**broflovskik**: Kenny and Craig.  
_marshlander_: kenny?  
**broflovskik**: Kenny  
_marshlander:_ and craig  
**broflovskik**: indeed.  
_marshlander_: COME OVER RIGHT NOW, we need to girlie gossip about this shit right here  
**broflovskik**: listen to yourself dude  
_marshlander:_ im trying but all the noise inside my head is like KENNY AND CRAAAAAIG  
**broflovskik**: dl though right?  
_marshlander_: dude everything we dig up is kept quiet, you know that  
**brofovskik:** it's Kenny, we do owe the guy respect  
_marshlander_: BUT WE CAN STILL GIRLIE GOSSIP IF ITS SECRET GIRLIE GOSSIP  
**broflovskik:** i hate you so much  
_marshlander_: you cant resist my body  
**broflovskik:** so fucking much hate right now.  
**brofovksik**: be over in ten or so  
_marshlander_: I'LL BE READY

**broflovskik has gone offline**

_marshlander_: AND SO WILL MY BODY oh wait you've gone :(


End file.
